


no hands but our hands

by penhaligon



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-07-07 22:23:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19858966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penhaligon/pseuds/penhaligon
Summary: Itamen hides, Avad worries, and the constellation of the Palace orbits the Sun.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I _am_ working on my other fic, lol, but unfortunately I lost my save file and am hurrying to unlock the entire map again for reference, and I've wanted to write this for a while.
> 
> Content warning: This fic references past domestic violence and child abuse.

_You hold the spade to turn new soil._   
_For the coming grace, you hold the plans._   
_And no hands but our hands will lead our children._

\- Wildlight, [“From the Ground Up”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKogCHXSNdU)

* * *

The Solarium had been designed to tame the heat of the Sundom. Its walls and canopies were constructed to endlessly funnel moving air and to cast deep, sweeping shadows at all times of the day. It was early morning, when the Sun had not yet warmed the land and banished night's lingering chill. Coolness lingered in its shadows, on its surfaces, on Avad's skin, and yet heat rose in his face and rushed through his limbs.

"I said no," he said, tight and tense.

At some point, he'd gotten to his feet, untouched breakfast forgotten. Marad stood opposite him, arms folded, a few sheaves of loose parchment clutched in a fist. The parchment crinkled, and Marad looked away for a moment, taking a measured breath. "Avad," he said, with thinning patience. There was no one close enough for formality to matter. His scowl returned, redoubled. "You are letting your personal feelings get in the way of--"

"I am not _letting_ anything of the sort." Avad didn't mean to snap, but the words were clipped and harsh. It was his turn to take a breath, which did nothing for the flush in his face, the buzzing under his skin like something was skittering and clawing just under the surface. It was too hot. It wasn't even close to midday. "I've considered it, as you asked, but he's too young."

Marad continued to level that scowl at him. "You were younger when you started."

It was far too hot, of the kind that trickled miserably down into one's stomach to form a pit. Avad swallowed, with effort, with the sickly feeling of congealing pressure at the back of his throat. "I won't allow him to be raised the way my father raised me."

The parchment bent. Something shifted in Marad's faltering scowl, and he looked away again. He seemed to become conscious of what he was holding, because he put the sheaves down on the table and none too gently. When he straightened, he squared his shoulders as he faced Avad once more. "That man didn't raise you," he said. " _I_ did. Your mother did."

In another situation, Avad might have pulled back for a moment. Might have smoothed over the bump in the conversation with a few choice words before continuing. But there was blood pounding in his ears, and he resented being ambushed with this so early in the morning. Again, after he'd made his and Nasadi's shared opinion quite clear. Sunlight glinted too-bright off of the misty, rock-red haze of the northeastern Sundom, and he gazed at the silhouette of the rigging in Cut-Cliffs in the far distance, instead of directly at Marad. "That's not the point. I'm not teaching him to hurt people."

"This is not about hurting anyone!" Marad said in a rush of exasperation. His voice, though frustrated, hadn't jumped in intensity. He never raised his voice, never got angry in the way that others did. But something in Avad still itched with the need to take a step back. "This is about Itamen being able to protect himself."

"And reinforce the belief that other people will hurt him?" Avad asked, and he nearly choked on the words. "He's a _child_."

Marad's breath left him in a rush. He looked at Avad with a disbelieving shake of his head, and it took him a few moments to respond. "How many attempts on your life have there been?" he demanded, and Avad wondered if it was imagination, the way that Marad's otherwise smooth and polished voice cracked infinitesimally around the words. "How many have come close? Do you think he'll be spared because of his age? That others won't seek to use him against you? You are _not_ this naive."

"You can't possibly think that a boy with a little sword could fend off a grown assassin!" Avad didn't realize that he'd shouted it until the force of it echoed around in his skull and was reflected in a slight widening of Marad's eyes.

Avad, too, never raised his voice, and yet...

"Of course not," Marad snapped. "But if he starts learning now--"

"I said _no!_ " Avad said again. Thundered it, actually.

He never threw commands around like that, either, not when it mattered. Not when he could compromise or negotiate or agree to talk about it later with a clearer head. But his head was hot with the slow-growing heat of the Sun, and the glare of morning light on the red rocks in the distance was starting to white out. The light of the Sun was supposed to be a source of strength, of steadiness. Right now, it was just hateful. Avad's skin itched with warmth, with the need to take shelter from it.

Marad didn't back down, and in another situation, Avad would have understood what it meant. That this was important to Marad for reasons beyond what was logical, because his advisor was equally competent at stepping away to argue the point at another time with another angle. Marad's face was tense and drawn with frustration, composure gone, and he took a breath to keep arguing.

But there was too much heat and light bearing down on Avad, rushing through his veins, and he didn't want to hear any more, and so he countered before Marad could speak, aiming low. "He's not yours to raise, Marad!"

The words rocked Marad back on his heels only a little, but the slight recoil was as bright as the midday Sun. Avad was too frustrated to regret it, until he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

He froze. His ears pounded with his own heartbeat, and he turned away from Marad, eyes on the little shadow lurking behind one of the nearby sofas. On the set of wide, watery eyes, only just visible.

The sight hit him like a blow to the face and left his ears ringing. For a second, he couldn't move, until mechanically, he stepped out from under the pavilion, raising a placating hand. But the shadow moved, disappearing out of sight and into the morning shadows. Avad tried to speak, to call it back, and nothing came out of his mouth at first.

"Itamen," he finally croaked. "I'm sorry. It's alright." He swallowed. "Please, come here."

But Itamen didn't respond, and Avad saw the shadow reappear at the opposite end of the Solarium. The boy disappeared from sight around the curve of the wall, and numbness trickled down through Avad's limbs, a sudden coldness in startling contrast to the heat. His heart pounded like a war drum.

He needed to go after Itamen. He needed to, and yet his feet remained rooted to stone as he stared at the spot where his brother had vanished. He told his legs to move, and yet they wouldn't.

He was only half-aware of Marad calling for one of the nearby guards to follow and keep an eye on the prince, and then another set, Itamen's Vanguards, hurried forward and explained something.

Avad felt Marad come up to his side and lay a hand on his shoulder. Without thinking, he pulled away.

Marad hovered at his shoulder only a moment longer, and then he was gone.

* * *

There was a tiny uproar about Itamen that morning, but it was fast becoming standard palace routine.

People were a little paranoid, and Erend couldn't blame them. The young prince was proving more slippery than anticipated, with a penchant for hiding. At least a few times a month, it seemed, the guards lost track of him for a minute or ten. Erend had started rotating between Vanguards and Carja soldiers, trying to find people who were faultlessly capable of keeping their eyes on Itamen at all times.

He didn't want to see the kid hurt or kidnapped, of course, but there was also the fact that every little uproar reflected back on him, now that he was captain. Captain of the Vanguard meant being in charge of palace security, and no one would quite say that it was because the Oseram could be trusted more than some Carja to _not_ shove a knife into Avad's back. A depressing thought, whenever Erend stopped to think about it, and so he didn't, most of the time. He put his head down and got to work, and that meant changing out guards and smoothing things over with whoever's feathers were ruffled.

The ruffled feathers belonged to Marad this time, but no stern lecture on choice of guard was waiting. The advisor was... distracted, Erend thought, and unhappily so. The sheaves of parchment in his hands were oddly crumpled and disorganized for someone usually so put-together.

"Yeah, Itamen wanted to get there early," Erend confirmed. He was a little confused about the situation, he had to admit. If Itamen hadn't slipped away, what was the issue? "So my men _didn't_ lose him, then?"

Marad shook his head. His scowl was magnificent, though Erend would prefer it pointed elsewhere. "They were waiting in the wings and didn't see fit to announce the prince's arrival."

Well, no, Erend didn't say, because the report had come to him with the addendum that Itamen had wanted his arrival plus a little gift to be a _surprise_ , and if asked, he and the runner had not _cooed_ over that, thank you very much. "Are we doing that now?" he asked. He was pretty sure that Avad had done away with any and all unnecessary formal bleating where possible. "Is that a thing?"

Marad gave him a tired look. "No," he said, waspish. "But if matters of delicacy are being discussed, a modicum of advanced warning is welcome."

Oh, Erend thought. "Alright," he said. "I'll make sure that gets around." He arched an eyebrow at Marad, in his best imitation of the man. "What happened?"

"It isn't your concern," Marad said, and Erend was a breath away from launching into a protest, because matters of delicacy -- up to and including their little spy network, of which he was an adjacent part -- most certainly _were_ his concern. Then Marad added, "However, if you could check in on His Radiance, I would appreciate that."

Erend didn't notice the overly formal title at first. He was too busy trying to figure out why. "Doesn't he have a meeting with the agricultural minister?" The meeting, and then the very exciting business of holding court for several hours, followed by more meetings and the vigil. Erend's mind automatically ran through the day's schedule. It was second nature now.

"I am rescheduling," Marad said, a little too smoothly for such an odd statement. Rescheduling usually meant that a crisis was happening, or someone was getting pointedly snubbed, but that didn't make any sense. The agricultural minister was a nice guy. They liked the agricultural minister. Right?

"Wait," Erend said. If not a snub, then: "Is everything okay?"

Marad blinked. "His Radiance is in the Solarium," he said and swept off without another word.

Erend blinked too. Marad never referred to Avad by title among personal company, and Erend was pretty sure that he counted in that circle by now. He turned, watching as Marad hurried for other levels of the palace with his shoulders set, not at all like his usual unflappable calm.

If Erend hurried up to the Solarium a little faster than normal, the guards on duty didn't comment on the way he skidded to a halt before them. The morning light was still warm instead of hot, and the breeze drifting between the walls was cool on the skin. It was peaceful, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but Erend still lowered his voice before addressing the guards. "Did something happen?"

One of the Carja soldiers nodded. He looked reluctant to elaborate, but Erend glared, so the soldier glanced around before speaking. "... The king and Lord Marad had a row," the man said in a low voice.

 _Oh,_ Erend thought. The world started to make sense again, and he wasn't proud of asking, "Do you know what it was about?" immediately after that, but hey, he'd never claimed to be perfect. He didn't know if he was going to get an answer when he marched up into the Solarium proper.

He also didn't know if the guards denied it because they genuinely hadn't been able to hear, or because they had more integrity than him, but when they had nothing more to offer, he nodded briskly and stepped past.

Avad was sitting hunched at a table full of untouched breakfast under one of the pavilions, his head in his hands. Must have been some row, Erend thought, because he knew that no one held Avad's confidence like Marad did, and Avad simply didn't get into arguments like that. Not the kind that nearby guards spoke about furtively.

Erend was burning with curiosity to know what they'd been fighting about, but he approached the pavilion warily and swallowed back the comment that flitted through his mind, about Avad doing Ersa proud and finally learning how to go at it hammer and tongs. He was pretty sure that Marad hadn't meant "try to lighten the mood like a coward" when he'd said to "check in."

"Uh," Erend said instead, "you okay?"

Avad lifted his head. He looked... pale, and it set off clanging alarm bells in Erend's head. "I'm fine," Avad said, sitting up. It was such a blatant lie that Erend had to wonder if the king was banking on the fact that the Erend of before might have accepted the subtle suggestion to back off and done so gladly. But _this_ Erend, well... he was going to do better than that. "Is something wrong?"

"Not on _my_ end of things, no," Erend said. "Marad sent me to check on you, and I'm not leaving until _you_ tell me what's wrong." He chose the bench opposite Avad and sat down to emphasize his point. He didn't know what to do with his hands, so he ended up leaning his elbows on the table with his arms loosely folded, and he hoped that it came across as confident rather than awkward. "What, you had a fight with him? That's an hourly thing back in the Claim."

Avad's back was as straight as a spear shaft. He didn't know what to do with his hands either, considering that he was probably cutting crescents into his palms right about now. Erend clamped down on the urge to ask him to stop that. One thing at a time. "... He sent you?" Avad asked at length.

"Yeah," Erend said. He knew that Avad was dodging the question, but he decided to respect it for the time being. "I think he feels bad about it."

Avad looked away. He really was pale, his color off in a way that made Erend itch with the admittedly overprotective desire to tell him to call for a healer. He didn't.

"You know, a fight's not so bad," Erend ventured instead. "You're just not used to it."

But Avad shook his head. "It doesn't..." he said, then fell silent. His eyes drifted down at the table. "... Itamen overheard."

Erend took a moment to consider the words. The argument itself wasn't the issue, then. It was what Itamen had heard. "Marad did seem pissed about that," he said. "Did the kid hear something he wasn't supposed to?"

Avad lifted his head to look at Erend, then glanced away. He was twitchy, nervous, drawn in on himself, like he didn't know where to look or what to do. It was, quite frankly, alarming. The last time he'd seen Avad this upset was in the days when Avad had first arrived in the Claim and the days before and after the Liberation. Even then, it had been glimpsed through accidental slips of composure. Any further confidence was granted to Ersa and to Marad.

But Ersa was gone, and Marad wasn't here, and that left Erend, who was conscious of the fact that he was not the best or most graceful at this sort of thing. Still... Marad had come to him, and Avad clearly trusted him enough not to summarily kick him out of the Solarium, and Erend would be damned if he let Ersa down any more than he already had.

"He ran off," Avad said. "I tried to call him back, but... he was scared. I could see it. He heard me yelling. He was scared of me."

Erend had been about to ask why Avad hadn't run after the kid. His mouth snapped shut as a cascade of realizations flooded through his mind. He understood, suddenly, why _Avad_ seemed scared and pale and shaky, when that hadn't made a spark of sense before.

Oh, Maker.

The lines of Avad's face were stricken. He sighed, his head sinking back down, his hands rubbing at his forehead. "I told myself that he wouldn't grow up in the same environment that Kadaman and I did."

"Whoa," Erend said, and he drew himself up, even though something heavy and vaguely sick was settling into his gut. "Hey. No. I'm gonna stop you right there." Avad was blowing things out of proportion, to be sure, but Erend understood it uncomfortably well. "You are _nothing_ like that slag."

Avad looked up at him miserably.

" _One_ incident doesn't mean shit," Erend said, and if he sounded more aggressive than he meant to, well... if Avad was anything like his father, then there was truly no hope for Erend. "You weren't even yelling _at_ him. Kids get freaked out by anything. It _doesn't mean shit_." Erend took a deep breath and realized that he was a little too upset himself. He took another breath and tried to keep his voice level. "So, you lost your cool _once_? Great. That means you're a normal person like the rest of us mortals. Which is good, because I was starting to think that maybe you really were some untouchable god."

Which, in hindsight, maybe wasn't the most tactful thing to say, but something in Avad's face softened.

"You've got me beat, anyway," Erend added. "Not so long ago, I was a sloppy, fool drunk just like my old man, and you... what, you yell at someone once? You've definitely got me beat."

Avad looked down at the table again. "It's more than that," he said, quiet.

Erend considered that and could draw absolutely no examples from anything he'd seen or heard, which meant that whatever Avad was talking about was probably internal and maybe another thing taken out of proportion. But it wasn't disproportionate in Avad eye's. Especially not today. "You wanna talk about it?"

Avad's hands had, thankfully, given up on trying to excavate his palms, but they latched on to the edge of the table, as if hanging on. "... I didn't want to kill him," he said at length, which Erend thought was an enormously generous sentiment. "But... when I did..." and suddenly Erend knew, with his stomach dropping all the way down to the bottom of the mesa, what Avad was going to say before he said it, "for a moment, I was... _happy_. It was vindictive. I'm not proud of it."

Well... fire and spit. He'd probably spent every moment since beating himself up over it, too, which was just cosmically unfair. But Avad wouldn't see it that way. "Okay," Erend said. "That is definitely _not_ because you've got his crazy. That's because he deserved it. I know you feel differently because of... because of his whole violence-first approach, and I think that's all the evidence you need that you are completely different from him, but... look..." He let silence fall, as he considered what to say. What _was_ there to say? "I don't know what he did to you. But... if you ever want to get blackout drunk and get it all out, my door's open, okay? We could swap war stories."

Uncorking his own bottle of sour scrappersap was not something he particularly _wanted_ to do, but if it helped Avad to feel a little less guilty about offing some huge prick whose public sphere was no doubt a reflection of his private one, then Erend could be a man and deal with it.

At the very least, the surprise on Avad's face was a better sight than the agitated energy of before. Erend hadn't expected that to be the thing that relaxed Avad, but some of the tension bled out from him, leaving him in a rather tired slump. He let go of the table, drawing his hands into his lap. "Thank you, Erend," Avad said quietly, and then he became pensive, his thoughts noticeably turning inwards. A sad, wistful look crossed his face. "... I only ever told Ersa about that."

And now she was gone, and with a lump in his throat, Erend understood the unbearable weight of needing to share something with at least one other person in the world. He hadn't been all that surprised when he'd learned the true nature of their relationship -- he wasn't a complete idiot -- but it gave him pause now. That Avad would tell him something that he'd only shared with her. Maybe... Erend was alright at this. At filling an impossible gap as best he could. "Thanks," he said, and his voice may have been a little strangled. "I mean, for trusting me with that."

Now that Avad was coming back to himself, a little less of a nervous wreck, the look he gave Erend was sweeping and discerning. "I trust you, Erend," Avad said, shifting and straightening in that way that brought his full attention on whoever he was talking to, and oh, Erend didn't need his kingly tactics right now, thanks. "You've been invaluable as a captain. And a friend. I don't know if I've said it enough."

"Well, that's great to hear," Erend said, making a big show of getting up and leaving without actually doing so. He was pretty sure that his face was as red as the eyes of an angry machine. The Solarium clearly wasn't doing its job at staying cool, either. "Good talk."

It had the desired effect, because Avad had a small, amused smile on his face. He didn't push the subject any further.

"You just need to talk to Itamen," Erend said, and it wasn't only to steer the conversation away from himself. He was on his feet now, because he really did have places to be, but he wasn't leaving just yet. "Explain the situation, and he'll understand. He's been happy here. We've all seen it. Like I said, kids freak out. Seems like running from conflict is pretty normal for him." Erend immediately cursed himself for adding that, because Avad's face fell at the idea of tripping some flight instinct of his brother's. "It'll be fine, yeah? But not if you keep hiding from him too."

Avad took a steadying breath before responding. He didn't get up, but no longer did he sit like he was trying to disappear into the ground. "You're right," he said. "Thank you."

"And Marad's cleared your schedule up to court," Erend added. Privately, he thought that they should take the whole day. For all that Avad seemed calmer, there was still a tinge to his face that Erend wasn't fond of. To say nothing of seeing Marad _frazzled_ , a bizarre and frightening sight. But the courtiers and petitioners wouldn't take cancellation well, and though Erend's response to that would be "fuck 'em," at least for today, that wasn't _proper_. "So maybe talk to him too?"

Avad looked thoughtful and a little guilty, and Erend was once again dying to know what they'd been arguing about. But he didn't ask.

If he was feeling like an ass later, he could always get it from Vanasha, who would no doubt know, one way or another.

* * *

"Oh?" Vanasha said, looking up from her perch atop her desk and evaluating the expression on Marad's face. "What did you do?"

She kept the anticipation out of her voice, more or less, as Marad stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. It wasn't that she missed being at Sunfall, in and of itself. No, she was still looking over her shoulder, plagued with the ever-present feeling that she could be found out at any moment, even within the safety of her own chambers in Meridian. She didn't particularly miss field work, either, because she could pull more strings in here than out there.

But when Marad had given her this job, he'd neglected to mention how much of it involved reading reports that looked like Nasadi's daily updates on palatial inventories, costs, schedules, and the like, but weren't. She was always reading, it seemed, and then using that to navigate between a hundred threads that wove together in an ever-growing tapestry, and sometimes she did miss the straightforward simplicity of taking an assignment and seeing it through to completion.

So a distraction was welcome, and someone who didn't know Marad might have thought that the look on his face was a sign that he was dealing with frustrations of a more external sort, like a negotiation gone in a direction he didn't favor. But Vanasha knew him, and the metaphorical shadow that he pulled in with him didn't give a damn about the morning light flooding through the bay windows or the lovely orange curtains that Nasadi had picked out for her to brighten the room. Marad didn't cast that kind of pall unless he was upset with himself, and besides, she already knew what he'd done, on today of all days.

Every single employee in the palace answered to her, so if someone happened to overhear or witness something that could be at all relevant to the well-being of her king or queen or prince, well... she and Marad didn't hire people who couldn't move fast.

Marad didn't appear fazed by her choice of seating or her words, but when he didn't answer right away, Vanasha frowned and set the reports aside. "Are you alright?"

A dismissive wave of Marad's hand was the response to that, before he answered her earlier question. "I brought up the matter of Itamen's martial training with the king. He didn't take it well."

"By the Sun," Vanasha said, "we're calling him the _king_ now?" She sighed, long and exaggerated, and uncoiled her legs, letting them dangle off the edge of the desk. "I told you not to push it." Especially not today. She agreed with Marad, of course. But Nasadi and Avad didn't, and for two people who were as calm as the Daybrink on a clear day, they could be utterly immovable when they combined forces. It made Vanasha wonder exactly what else was going on, because learning sword and spear was standard for any noble son. No parent -- or older sibling forced to step in as a parent -- would think twice. "Something tells me there's a _reason_ he isn't taking this well."

It was as close as she'd get to asking directly, because it was plain as day that it was a sore spot for Marad as well.

"There is," Marad said flatly, and no more.

Vanasha didn't let her disappointment show on her face. "Well," she said, "you're not going to get anywhere by needling, then. Look, I know you worry about Itamen. So do I. But before you ask, no, I am not going to bother Nasadi about it again. We should let it rest for a while."

"That isn't why I'm here," Marad said, absently pulling forth and handing over a sheaf of parchment from the collection he held in his arms. He really must have been having a bad morning, because it was slightly crumpled and he hardly spared it a glance.

Vanasha took note of the script -- more "inventory," not particularly pressing -- and set it down on top of the reports beside her. "You're here about Itamen, then?" That report had come about five minutes before Marad had, and she knew that the prince was safely tucked away in the low gardens for now, shadowed by his guards. She also knew that Marad had rearranged the schedule of half the morning to allow room to deal with this, liberating Avad from a meeting and Itamen from morning lessons.

Marad nodded once. He didn't quite meet her eyes. "He was present for our... disagreement. We were not aware of his presence until it was too late." He sighed, and in that moment, he didn't look like a distinguished advisor and councilman and right hand to the Sun-King. He looked like a tired old man. "He ran. If you could inform Nasadi and see to him..."

Vanasha sat there for a moment, tracing paths to their conclusions. Sunfall, like a dark shadow, was always at her back. Itamen was a quiet child, and Helis had made sure to quash any inclination to run, to remove himself from uncomfortable situations. But Itamen could do so without fear of retaliation here, and there were a few usual hiding spots he retreated to. The fact that he'd gone to the gardens meant that he was especially upset and more likely to bolt. But the guards knew to give him space, which meant that he would probably stay put until his mother got there.

"Is Avad okay?" Vanasha asked as she hopped off of the desk. If he hadn't gone after his brother yet, then the answer to that was a solid "probably not."

"Erend is with him," Marad said, already turning towards the door, as if seeking escape.

Vanasha narrowed her eyes at the not-quite-answer. She stepped forward and came level with him, tilting her head. "You didn't leave in a huff, did you?"

Marad paused. Again, he came just shy of meeting her gaze. "... The Sun-King doesn't wish to see me right now."

"The _Sun-King_ ," Vanasha said, "is an unreasonably reasonable man." She flounced around Marad for emphasis as she spoke, then made towards a door that lay opposite the bay windows, which led to Nasadi's chambers. Her words were light and airy, but she took the time to squeeze Marad's shoulder as she passed. "I'll go and tend to the young prince, but if I come back and find that you haven't worked things out with Avad by the end of the day, I'll sic Uthid on you. I'm sure you'd love to listen to him complain about western border security some more."

"If he can produce the manpower and shards out of thin air, he's welcome to tend to that himself," Marad said irritably.

"I can tell him that, or you can," Vanasha said sweetly over her shoulder. It wasn't that she didn't take Uthid's concerns about the west seriously. She'd heard the same strange reports that he had, back in Sunfall, ones that they were still getting. But they could only concentrate the majority of their resources on so many things at a time, and between recovery and reintegration efforts, and the machines, they had their hands full already. A close eye and the manpower they had would have to do for now. "It's your choice."

It was interesting how different the shadows of the dead could be, Vanasha thought, as she stepped through the door and closed it behind her. Hers were painful, but tempered with sweetness. She could look back on fond memories of softer times and mourn the loss of those, even as she let the fury of that loss guide her and keep her focused. She looked over her shoulder like the great machine of the old regime might return when she wasn't looking, might take everything she'd worked to build in the name of what she'd lost and tear it to pieces.

She didn't look over her shoulder like Nasadi did, like she might find it in her bedroom calling her wife. Like Itamen and Avad did, like they might find it tightening a stranglehold on their necks while calling them son.

Nasadi was seated at a desk of her own, going over the same reports that Vanasha had been, though hers didn't double as code. Karadah sat across from her, diligently taking notes, some of which would be added to the day's schedule and some of which were orders to be sent out. They looked up as Vanasha entered, and Nasadi smiled, welcoming and warm.

"Anything to add?" she asked brightly, tapping her pen on the scattered parchments.

The difference never stopped lightening something in Vanasha's heart. There was still a subtle caution in the way Nasadi moved and spoke, and perhaps it would never fully leave, but Nasadi had a vigor now, unrestrained and eager. It radiated outward the way that sunlight was supposed to, warming the palace and everyone in it.

"Not quite," Vanasha said. "I'm afraid breakfast didn't go very well this morning."

Nasadi's brows drew together in a frown. She set the pen down and nodded to Karadah, who dipped her head and disappeared with notes in hand after exchanging a nod with Vanasha. "What happened?" Nasadi asked.

"Itamen walked in on Avad and Marad having a little tiff," Vanasha sighed, "and it frightened him. He's hiding in the gardens right now."

Nasadi stood up at once, gesturing for Vanasha to follow as she circled around the desk. "A _tiff?_ " she asked, eyebrows high.

"I know," Vanasha said, walking alongside the queen as they left Nasadi's chambers. "I think Marad has been a bit too insistent about Itamen's training. But don't worry, I've already told him to give it a rest."

A troubled frown was now etched into Nasadi's face. She didn't speak right away, and Vanasha clamped down on the urge to fill the silence with questions. Though Nasadi rarely failed to move with composure, there was a hurry to her steps that Vanasha matched, and the sandstone halls lined with ornate tapestries and wide windows flashed by. It was too early for the light of day to have gained momentum, and so the halls were chill.

"I know you are in agreement with him, Vanasha," Nasadi said finally, quietly. "I would hear your honest thoughts."

Vanasha's steps didn't falter, but she carefully turned the words over in her mind. As carefully as she'd approached the subject with Nasadi in the past. Honest thoughts... now there was a stalker's minefield, indeed. But Nasadi asked so plainly, and Vanasha usually found it difficult to dodge around that. "The things I learned when I was young led me to where I am today," she said, a little warily. She wanted to see Itamen safe, and though being able to fight with sword and bow and spear was no guarantee of that, it certainly helped. It would take years to build the requisite skill; better to start now. "Some of them are distasteful, yes, but this world is not kind."

Nasadi nodded slowly, like it was an answer she'd expected. "And if it was," she asked, "would you have chosen to learn them?"

Vanasha faltered then, trailing to a halt, and Nasadi slowed and turned, facing her. They were alone in the hallway, though Vanasha's eyes and ears, on instinct, sought out the slightest change -- a flicker of shadow or a whisper of feet. But there was only the pale morning light and the faintest breeze filtering in through the nearest window.

What would she have chosen, if the world had been different? If she'd grown up during a reign like Avad's, if her family had not suffered so much? Vanasha was perturbed to find that she had no immediate and certain answer. "... I don't know," she said, but it wasn't as honest as it could have been. No, she thought. Perhaps not.

Nasadi offered another small nod and resumed walking. It was a few moments before she spoke again, clearly in deep thought. "My late husband didn't care for Avad," she said. She never referred to Jiran by name. "And he was wary of Kadaman's boldness. He hoped that Itamen would prove a better and more malleable heir, in his eyes."

Vanasha nodded, unsurprised. The troubles of the royal family had been intentionally shrouded, but there was much that she'd gleaned from Marad anyway, and there were rumors. There were always rumors.

"I did what I could to deflect his attention from Itamen," Nasadi continued, softly. "It was not enough. It was frightening for Itamen to have the weight of his father's attention and expectations on him." She fell silent, and her gaze was far away. "I want Itamen to be free to choose the kind of person he wants to be, when he is old enough to understand what those choices mean. To pick up a sword is to intend to use it one day. It is not always dishonorable, but enough blood has already been spilled in his name and his father's name."

It was rare to hear Nasadi talk about the subject like this. For all that Vanasha was Nasadi's closest confidant, there were many things that the queen kept close to her heart. Vanasha wondered what had changed, on a morning that wasn't much different from any other morning, a little commotion aside. Perhaps it was only a matter of time and distance. Of feeling safe enough, for long enough.

Whatever it was, Vanasha's own feelings on the subject grew increasingly muddled, then and there. If asked, in that moment, she wouldn't have been able to offer a certain opinion, and she knew it was something that she'd be turning over in her head for a long time. Her eyes trailed over glimpses of the Sundom seen through the windows - here a towering column of sandstone, there a stretch of deep green.

An heir who had not yet started learning the art of combat was certainly unorthodox. But wasn't the unorthodox nature of Avad's reign why she fought so fiercely to defend it?

"Itamen is lucky to have such a brave and wise mother," Vanasha murmured.

Nasadi's face twitched in some nameless emotion. She didn't look at Vanasha. "It didn't feel very brave," she said, almost too quiet to hear.

Vanasha circled as she walked, facing Nasadi and moving backwards, her feet tracing the way with the familiarity she had learned as one of Marad's "hires" during the old reign, when their network had been an informal thing of resistance. "Maybe not at the time," she said, trying not to sound overly defensive. It wouldn't be appreciated, she knew, but she'd keep reassuring Nasadi of it, however many times she had to. "But even that bastard knew that endurance is the greatest of strengths. You have more bravery than any Kestrel."

Nowadays, the lines of Nasadi's face looked more like they were born from smiling than from stress. She met Vanasha's gaze at last and regarded her warmly. "And how many times have you given me similar rhetoric?"

"Hmm," Vanasha said. She distinctly recalled a time that she had, very quietly and privately, railed against Helis and said that he wasn't fit to walk in the same light as Nasadi or Itamen. It had been a long two years in Sunfall. "You're right. I need some new material."

Nasadi chuckled. "I liked the part about being wise," she suggested.

But she ducked away and threatened to hide behind the tapestries, covering an embarrassed smile with her hands, when Vanasha started loudly singing her praises, and they made their laughing way down to the gardens.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sunfall, Three Years Ago**

They'd been given every appearance of courtesy. Nothing in Sunfall was quite as fine as Meridian, but the chambers were second only to those occupied by the High Priest, and Nasadi had been allowed to share rooms with Itamen still. That, she knew, was to make it easier to keep an eye on both of them. The exits in these rooms were limited and guarded, and Itamen had been made aware that as long as he cooperated, no harm would befall his mother.

Nasadi had not wept. Not when the possibilities of what some called the Liberation and some called the shadow of high treason had been snatched away by Helis. And not now, left only with herself and Itamen in a suffocating gilded prison not unlike the one before, except this one was out in the middle of a harsh desert with no green, no friends, and no allies. Despite that, Nasadi kept her eyes dry and smiled for Itamen and did as she was told.

She wondered how long she would have to keep it up. Until Helis made good on his threats and returned to Meridian, and the civil war was decided once and for all? Until Itamen was old enough and bold enough to take his birthright from those who gave it to him indulgently for their own agendas, provided that all that surrounded them had not corrupted her sweet boy by then?

Either way, it seemed a long and lonely road for the queen mother.

There was a knock on the door one morning, while Nasadi and Itamen were sitting at breakfast. Nasadi's heart immediately clenched. No one came this early, which meant that something was different, and different was dangerous here. But she put on a smile for Itamen and spoke loudly enough to be heard. "Enter."

A soldier, not one of the guards stationed at the door, stepped into the room and inclined his head. "My lady," he said, followed by, "Your Radiance," and he bowed to Itamen before returning his attention to Nasadi. "One of your handmaidens arrived in the night. She claims to have fled Meridian in search of you. We need you to confirm her identity."

Some of the tightness in Nasadi's chest eased, and something leapt up into her throat, glad and curious. She stood, and Itamen mirrored her, coming up behind her to clutch at her skirts. She let him grasp one of her hands tightly. "Send her in," Nasadi said.

The woman who stepped into the room behind the soldier was not a handmaiden, though she was dressed like one who had traveled hard and far. Nasadi recognized her distantly -- a serving woman, one of Marad's hires. He had served the previous queen as a steward at some point while acting as advisor to the second prince -- what some called a demotion -- and so had been in charge of managing the palace staff, though Nasadi's husband had given her an entirely new retinue of slaves rather than transfer any of the old queen's servants over to her. As such, Nasadi hadn't come into contact with this woman often, but she'd seen her around, perhaps a little too much for someone who didn't work for her. She didn't let her surprise show on her face.

Just before the soldier turned his head to glance between them, the woman met Nasadi's eyes and winked.

Nasadi had always made a point of acquainting herself with those who worked in the palace. It was the least she could do and a shadow of what she was supposed to do, had she not been forbidden from it, and she had a head for pairing names with faces. It only took a moment to recall this woman's name, and she let her face blossom into a glad smile before she spoke, covering the pause.

"Vanasha," she said, and she didn't have to fake any warmth. "You crossed the Rustwash for me?"

"Of course I did, my lady," Vanasha said, taking another step forward, around the soldier. "I couldn't bear to stay in Meridian. My queen needed me, and the hateful shadow of the false king drove me to seek out the light of the true king." Nasadi heard the double meaning clearly, as Vanasha bowed deeply to Itamen with the words. "Your Radiance."

Nasadi squeezed Itamen's hand, hoping that he could comprehend the warning, and he remained silent. Whether he understood or not, his shyness was a blessing, for once. She felt him nod to Vanasha, and for once, Nasadi didn't correct his manners and didn't encourage him to speak directly to others no matter their station, in order to show them respect.

The thing that had leapt into Nasadi's throat was tightening, hope and thrill and fear seizing her breath. But she spoke evenly as she returned her attention to the soldier. "This is indeed a handmaiden of mine," she said. "She was newly appointed before tragedy struck us, but I have no doubt that only loyalty could have prompted her to undertake such a perilous journey, and only the Sun's favor granted her survival of those dangerous roads." There were plenty of loyalist stragglers still making their way to Sunfall, those who didn't fall victim to the sands and machines. One handmaiden trickling in with the rest of them would not be unusual.

The soldier looked satisfied with this and eager to be off. Of course he would be, Nasadi thought. No one really paid attention to servants or women or wives, let alone a widow. He dipped his head to Nasadi again. "I will report your words to High Priest Bahavas."

Nasadi had no doubt that Vanasha would remain under scrutiny for some time, particularly when Nasadi had not been appointed any new servants or handmaidens since arriving in Sunfall. She also had no doubt that Vanasha could handle it, she who had clearly talked her way this far and performed no small feat in surviving the crossing from Meridian.

The soldier took his leave of Itamen and departed, and Vanasha didn't say anything of note just yet. She prattled on about how frightening and difficult the trek had been, about how glad she was to share Nasadi's company once more, and she managed to make Itamen smile in record time. It wasn't until later that she acquainted her true self with Nasadi and told the story in pieces under the secretive cover of nighttime darkness, where the Sun couldn't see or hear them.

How Jiran's increasing paranoia had prevented Marad, who was more than he seemed and more than even Jiran had known, from getting any of his people close enough to Nasadi and Itamen, not before Avad returned. How Vanasha had thus taken this assignment because she was the best. How being the best did not always mean being the fastest, and how it would be a long road to finding a way out of this mess.

But the road, Nasadi thought, did not seem quite as lonely as it had before.

* * *

**Meridian, Present**

When Vanasha and Nasadi arrived at the gardens, the guards posted at the entrance informed them that Itamen and his guards were within. They found Itamen's Vanguards lurking near the inner edge of the gardens, at the highest level burrowed deepest into the mesa. Here, the area was almost perpetually shaded and cool, and the greenery was mostly composed of plants that thrived with little direct sunlight, ferns and dark-leaved things.

The private gardens were terraced into the western face of the mesa, a few long and narrow levels resting at one of the lowest points of the palace and jutting off the side. A small aqueduct branched off from the cisterns and wound its way over to form the waterfall that fed the gardens and supplied the gardeners. It cascaded down into a pond, which had its own small aqueducts that wound down the terraces and off the sides of the mesa to let the water cascade back down to the river below, ensuring that the garden water never stagnated.

The citrus trees were aligned in two long, neat rows at the lowest level, where they would receive the most light when the Sun climbed overhead and sank to the west. Some of them had been allowed to inosculate, so that few trees in a row seemed more like one great tree. There was plenty of room within for a small boy to clamber up and make himself scarce, and Nasadi didn't need the Vanguards to tell her that Itamen had found his hiding place in the largest fusion of trees.

She wouldn't have needed Vanasha to tell her that he was hiding in the gardens, either. After the Sun-King had married her, Nasadi had come here often to tend to the plants alongside the gardeners, and after she'd had Itamen, he had been her regular companion. If one didn't look down or too closely west, it was easy to pretend that she was back at the estate, surrounded by the family gardens and fields and in sight of the vast greenery of the Jewel. That she wasn't high up, above it all, with no way down.

"My goodness," Vanasha said, as they followed a stone path that sloped down and ran alongside one of the little aqueducts, which branched off into even smaller channels, like the roots of a tree. The citrus loomed ahead of them, and the fusion of three trees in which Itamen hid, wider than a behemoth, was directly in front of the place where path split in either direction up and down the row. But with a wink at Nasadi, Vanasha drifted away, planting her hands on her hips and peering around other trees in the row. "Where _is_ that clever prince?"

Nasadi, too, made a show of investigating the area, her smile private and hidden. "He's far too good at this," she said, shaking her head as she peeked around and into the shadows of a tree that stood alone. Beyond was the next row of orange trees, and beyond that, the vine-wreathed banister at the far edge of the gardens. The cliffs in the distance were still veiled in mist that morning light had not yet burned away. "He confounds even his own mother."

"You've raised a master of concealment, my lady," Vanasha's voice said, a few trees down the row.

The large fusion of trees let out a faint, muffled giggle, and it did Nasadi's heart good. Until recently, she had never heard enough of the sound. It was a good sign, that Itamen felt comfortable enough to hide here, that it was easy to make him laugh.

"See?" Vanasha said. As Nasadi stepped back onto the path, she saw Vanasha round the tangled trees and throw her hands up into the air dramatically as she peered up at the branches. "Even the trees laugh at how we struggle to find him."

Something rustled within the branches, concealed by thick green foliage dotted with ripening orange fruit. "Vanasha," a little voice said. "I'm not a tree."

"Remarkable!" Nasadi said, unable to keep herself from smiling widely as she came to stand beside Vanasha. The empty spaces within the trees were shadowy, glimpsed between the clusters of leaves and branches, but she could just make out a darker shadow, a little above their heads, clinging to the thicker branches near the middle trunk. "The trees speak your name, my dear."

"And they make outrageous claims," Vanasha said. Her hands were back on her hips, the picture of disbelief. "You look like a tree to me."

The giggle came again. "I'm not!"

"I'm afraid I must agree with Vanasha," Nasadi said gravely. "You have leaves and fruits and branches. What else could you be, if not a tree?"

" _Mother,_ " the voice said, exasperated as only children could be. "I'm Itamen."

Nasadi put a hand to her chest and feigned shock. "Itamen!" she exclaimed. "You've turned into a tree?"

"No!" the voice said, and Vanasha coughed to cover her laughter. "I'm in the branches."

" _Oh!_ " Vanasha said, theatrical as only she could be. "So _that's_ where you've hidden. An excellent hiding spot, little prince. We might have gone on thinking you were a tree forever!"

The branches rustled again. "I would have come down eventually."

Nasadi took a step forward, her eyes on the shadow just visible between the leaves. "Will you come down now, Itamen?"

The shadow was still, and Itamen didn't answer right away. Nasadi and Vanasha exchanged a glance and said nothing further. As she waited, Nasadi's ears attuned themselves to the faint sound of the waterfall, of water trickling through the aqueducts. It had been a comforting sound to her, in days past.

"Do I have to?" Itamen asked, his voice subdued.

Nasadi's heart squeezed. There were some, perhaps, who might have found her approach to parenting too soft, especially when there was no father to balance it out. But softness was what Itamen deserved, and no one would dare challenge it if the Sun-King didn't. "Not at all," she said gently. "Eventually, yes, but if you would like to stay in there for a while, it's alright."

"Why are you in there, Itamen?" Vanasha asked, her voice uncommonly serious.

A breeze had picked up, cool and fresh with the scents of the garden -- late-blooming flowers and ripening citrus all mingled together. The breeze whispered through the branches of the trees around them, stirring the leaves and filling the silence. It was a familiar sound and scent, and as much as Nasadi loved this place, loved the trickling water and the rich breezes, such things often took her back to earlier days, before the death of her husband. Perhaps that was why she hadn't spent time here like she used to. But Itamen, at least, still found comfort in it.

"Avad is angry with me," Itamen said, quiet and shaky.

It was as Nasadi had thought -- that Itamen had misinterpreted the nature of the argument and taken it personally. "He's not angry with you," she said. "He's worried about you, and sometimes that makes him upset with other people. But it was not because of anything you did."

The shape in the branches considered this. Itamen often took his time to think about things before responding to them. It was a promising trait, even though it was born of things that he should never have been subjected to.

"I don't know the sword," Itamen said. "I'm supposed to."

Nasadi often found herself grateful that Helis and his ilk had been too preoccupied with their war and their Buried Shadow to pay much attention to Itamen, outside of whatever formal and empty gesture they occasionally needed him to perform. After Itamen had proven unresponsive to displays in the Sun-Ring, Helis had grown frustrated and had seemed uncertain of what to do with a child who didn't act, in his eyes, like a proper Sun-King. That uncertainty could have led to much worse, but Nasadi had used what little influence she had to fill Itamen's time with other lessons, and Helis and Bahavas had been too caught up in their own schemes and obsessed with their end goal to care. Raising a child was a mother's job, after all.

No, Itamen didn't know the sword and was late to start, and it was a blessing, as far as Nasadi was concerned. Had it not been for the ever-present fear characteristic of Sunfall, the suffering just outside in Shadowside, and the constant threats against their home and the people in it, the preoccupation of their captors might have been a reprieve from being under the thirteenth Sun-King's thumb.

It was Vanasha who answered, while Nasadi was caught up in her thoughts. "We are often _supposed_ to do things, Itamen," Vanasha said, and the solemnity in her voice had deepened. "That doesn't always mean that we should."

Nasadi glanced at her in surprise, though Vanasha's eyes stayed fixed on the little shadow in the branches. Had she taken Nasadi's words to heart? Nasadi knew that Vanasha loved Itamen and that her desire to see him battle-ready was a desire to see him safe. It was not something that Nasadi held against her; in fact, it was a position that Nasadi could easily take herself, if she buried all of the context surrounding it. But that was easier said than done. The circumstances surrounding her decision were as bright and unforgiving as the desert Sun striking the Sun-Ring during its zenith.

Itamen showed no inclination towards combat, and Nasadi had no desire to see him in any situation that Helis or her late husband would have wanted him in. In truth, she would rather never see him in a position that required him to use violence against another, though she acknowledged that it would more than likely come. But it didn't have to happen now.

"But..." Itamen said, small and plaintive, "do I need to?"

Nasadi and Vanasha exchanged another glance, and neither of them had a ready answer. It was plain to see that Vanasha's thoughts had changed somewhat today, and it wasn't often that Nasadi saw her at a loss for words. Nasadi's own thoughts were becoming a jumble.

This was no longer a situation they discussed out of earshot of Itamen. He knew, and he was clearly bothered, and Nasadi couldn't quite pinpoint what it was that was making his voice shrink like so.

Fear, yes, but of what?

When Nasadi looked at Vanasha, something moved in the corner of her eye. The guards at the opposite end of the gardens were stirring, snapping to attention in a speedy way that told her that Avad had arrived at last. She made a decision quickly and looked back at the trees. "I think Vanasha will be able to talk to you about that," she said, and Vanasha's eyes found her again, surprise clear on her face. Nasadi inclined her head, silently handing the conversation over. She trusted that Vanasha would do right by her son, and from the way Vanasha's face softened, that trust shone clear enough. "I need to step away for a moment, alright, Itamen?"

"Alright," said the tree.

Nasadi hurried back up the path, following the winding of the little aqueduct, and arrived at the opposite end of the gardens just as Avad was stepping away from conversing with the Vanguards.

He was still dressed in casual wear, Nasadi noted; the morning had been well and truly disturbed. A regretful look crossed Avad's face when he laid eyes on Nasadi. He opened his mouth to speak, with an apology clearly on his lips, and Nasadi interjected at once. "There's no need," she said, and Avad's mouth snapped shut as she gestured for him to step a little further into the gardens, away from other ears, which now included Avad's guards as well.

They took a path that wound parallel with the length of the topmost level, the one cut deepest into the mesa, shrouded by the shade of the overhang and crawling with ferns. Here, on the far side, the pond lay, the little waterfall feeding it steadily, and the noise of the cascading water concealed their words.

"You didn't know he was there," Nasadi said. "And you were defending him and my wishes. Thank you."

Avad's eyes drifted down to the pond, where the surface was continually disturbed by ripples, by the controlled flow into the garden aqueducts that sprung forth from it. "Still," he said ruefully, "I could have handled it better." Nasadi nodded once to acknowledge that, before Avad continued. "Is he..." Avad swallowed, "is he very upset with me?"

Nasadi almost smiled, but she didn't want to make him feel as though she were laughing at him, and years of practice had made her an old hand at keeping such things to herself. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Avad, despite leading the Sundom for almost three years now, was very new to raising a child. "... He thinks you're upset with him," she said carefully.

Avad almost hurried down to the citrus trees right then, she could tell. "No," he said at once. "That's not--"

"I know that," Nasadi said firmly. "He doesn't. Vanasha and I talked to him, but he needs to hear it from you too." Avad nodded quickly, but Nasadi kept on going before he could say anything. She needed to get this out and have it out. "And... I know what I said before, but..."

It was her turn to glance down at the pond, at the rippling water and broken reflections in its surface. When she'd been young, she'd found comfort in the gardens of home and listened attentively as her father talked about the fields. But even with her mother's teachings, it had taken some time for her to understand that some growing things needed less hovering and more freedom. The Jewel needed no hand to tend to it, after all.

"I think it's time we give the choice to Itamen," Nasadi said. "He knows it's an issue now." She sighed as the words left her. She didn't like this any more than Avad did, and she often wished that her only child had been born to another man, that everything he did was not required to be infused with meaning and watched by the eyes of the Sundom. But that was his life, and it was now brighter than anything she could have dared to hope in the past. "I still don't think he's old enough to truly understand, but he is old enough to know whether he wishes to start or not."

Avad didn't look surprised at her change of heart. He sighed, running a hand through his hair distractedly; with nothing adorning it, his curls were free and clearly untouched by any ministration. His eyes flitted to the nearby wall carved from the interior of the mesa, to the ferns nestled at its base and the vines crawling up the stone. "I was thinking similarly," he admitted. "It doesn't seem right to keep him out of the discussion now." He looked back at Nasadi. "You're his mother. Is this something that you would want to talk to him about?"

Nasadi reached out to pat his arm, shaking her head. "Avad," she said, and her chiding was gentle. "You've made it _your_ conversation to have."

She remembered, clear as day, Avad standing before her after she and Itamen had been liberated from Sunfall, when there were no prying eyes or ears. They'd made it back to Meridian with haste, and Itamen had been tucked into bed, and Avad, about ten years her junior, had asked Nasadi if she wanted help. The composure of the Sun-King had fallen away, leaving behind someone who was clearly restless with nerves and unsure of himself -- not very different from how he was now, here in the gardens.

Nasadi thought that he was afraid of raising a child, of the possibility that he would fall short of doing right by that child, and still he'd asked how much help she wanted in parenting Itamen. It shouldn't fall on the mother's shoulder's alone, he'd said, and it was that sentiment, unusual as it was, that had convinced her that he had a right to share the burden, if he wished. More right than his father ever had, Nasadi often thought.

It _was_ nice, not having to broach _every_ difficult conversation first.

Avad's face twitched in a smile that was only sheepish by a margin. "Very well," he said, and he offered her his arm. He was still tense, even though his face said otherwise. Nasadi could feel it when she took his arm into hers. Perhaps it was an inevitable state today, considering the vigil tonight.

But she didn't say anything further as they made their way down to the lowest level, across the terraces and past shrubs and flowers and trees, giving Avad time to compose himself once more.

* * *

"You know how to fight, Vanasha," the tree said, when Nasadi had disappeared back up the path.

Vanasha looked up at the branches and tread carefully with her words. The trust inherent in the fact that Nasadi had left her to talk to Itamen was not lost on her, and though she usually spun words with elegance and speed and color, and little in the way of needing to plot them out, she took her time now. "Yes," she said slowly. "... That's how I keep you and your mother and your brother safe."

It was much more complicated than that, but Nasadi and Avad were concerned with salvaging what they could of the uncomplicated parts of Itamen's world, and Vanasha was beginning to agree in earnest. Itamen already knew that she was more than handmaiden and now steward to the queen, having seen her in action, and that was quite enough.

"You're good at it," Itamen said.

"I am," Vanasha agreed, her head tilting as she tried to identify what was rippling through Itamen's voice. He was wary of violence, she knew for a fact, and she couldn't blame him. But he was fishing for something. "It can be helpful, but it is a scary thing, sometimes." When Itamen didn't respond right away, she ventured with, "I don't think you _need_ to learn just yet, little prince. That's why you have me and your guards to protect you."

The branches rustled as Itamen shifted. "But one day..." he said, and his voice was flat.

Vanasha stood there, her mind racing. "Perhaps not," she said cautiously, and maybe what guided her words was less forethought and more sympathy for how much he'd been pulled this way and that in the schemes of others. "One day, you might be king. And kings and princes don't _have_ to do anything they don't want to do. Of course," she amended quickly, mindful of all that Nasadi and Avad were trying to teach him, "they should listen to others and compromise and do the right thing. But... if it's something like this, then it will be up to you to decide what to do."

Isn't that what Nasadi had said? That Itamen would be free to choose who he wanted to be?

Itamen was silent for a while, and Vanasha nearly bit her tongue to keep from saying more. "So if I have lessons one day," the prince said finally, "I could decide not to go? Or to do badly?"

Oh dear, Vanasha thought. But she couldn't very well discourage such clever thinking, could she? The ability to twist what she'd said into 'doing badly' would serve him well, one day. She just hoped that it wouldn't extend to his other, more necessary lessons, once he reached the age where they became unbearably boring. "You could," she said, trying not to grimace. "But if you tell them how you feel about it, I don't think your mother or your brother would make you go to lessons if you didn't want to."

And that, hopefully, was good advice that perhaps couldn't be twisted so easily. Parenting was certainly a lot trickier than Nasadi made it look.

"How _do_ you feel about it?" Vanasha added.

The branches rustled again. Vanasha was pretty sure that Itamen had shrugged. "... I don't know," he muttered, after another long pause.

"That's okay," Vanasha said. "You don't have to figure it out right away."

She had always thought herself good at carrying on conversations. It was part and parcel of a job that saw her navigating between complex threads of relations, and spinning silken words together came to her easily. But the silence that followed felt oppressively awkward, and it had less to do with Itamen not responding or the expectation to keep talking, and more to do with the fact that Vanasha still felt that something was missing here. She couldn't put a finger on it, however, and she shifted on her feet, caught up in trying to figure out what it was.

Strange, how a little boy made her feel out of her element when all of the Shadow Carja in the world had not.

Luckily, Avad and Nasadi arrived in a timely fashion, and Nasadi met Vanasha's eyes with a significant look and a nod towards Avad as she let go of his arm. Vanasha stepped back and tried not to feel overly grateful about it. Her specialties were espionage and making Itamen and Nasadi laugh, not... this.

"Itamen," Nasadi said. "Avad is here to see you. Vanasha and I must return to our duties, but your guards will know where to find me if you need me."

There was no response from Itamen, but Nasadi only smiled faintly and gestured for Vanasha to follow. Vanasha turned to do so and almost made some silent, mouthed quip in Avad's direction as she did, if only to feel a little more in her element and tease the Sun-King, which was always good fun.

But Avad looked so solemn and stiff that Vanasha didn't have the heart to rib him, and so she only patted his arm as she passed, before following Nasadi out of the gardens.

* * *

Out in the gardens, the day was a little lighter and warmer. The Sun would not shine fully here until almost noon, hidden behind the mesa as it was, but its light glared off of the sandstone in the distance, visible between the orange trees that made up the neat rows at the western edge of the garden. Avad could just see Itamen crouched in the conjoined branches of three trees that had been allowed to inosculate for lack of space, and he took a deep breath, uncomfortably aware of the way it struggled to leave his chest.

His nerves felt somewhat ridiculous now, but this regrettable morning had to be resolved. No longer did blood pound so loudly in Avad's ears, resounding with things he'd prefer not to remember, and no longer did it loosen his tongue to the point of shouting with the force of it. He kept his voice measured and calm, keenly aware of every sound and movement he made.

"Hello, Itamen," Avad said, stepping forward and peering up into the branches. "I'm very sorry about earlier. It was wrong of me to yell, and I am not upset with you. You've done nothing wrong."

The silhouette in the branches didn't move or respond, and Avad took another breath to steady himself.

But then: "... You're not angry?" a little voice asked.

Avad had to swallow before speaking. "No," he said. That was something he had sworn to himself: that no matter what, neither he nor anyone else would ever turn any anger on Itamen. There had been quite enough of that in this palace already. "I got frustrated, and I chose to yell instead of talking about it calmly. That doesn't mean that I'm angry with you."

The branches shifted. Though it was difficult to see what Itamen was doing, he seemed to be leaning forward, instead of hanging back. "What about Marad?"

"He isn't angry with you either," Avad said, with another rush of guilt. He would seek out Marad later. There would likely be no time for any substantial conversation before court, but by the vigil, at least. "And I'm not angry with him. We were angry with each other for a moment, but not anymore." Another shift and trembling of leaves; Itamen had settled back on his perch. When he said nothing further, Avad asked, "May I climb up there with you?"

Another pause, then: "Alright," Itamen said.

It had been a long time since Avad had scaled a tree. Luckily, he hadn't bothered with formal dress before coming here, and the way up was not hampered by a headdress or too many fabric folds and metal edges. Leaves and branches poked at his skin, and he felt something that may have been an insect skitter across his arm. The narrow confines of the branches were still a squeeze for a grown man, however, and it took a little maneuvering to seat himself facing Itamen, on a thicker branch extending from the trunk. Smaller twigs were in his face, one of them nearly spearing him in the eye as he settled, and he snapped a few and tossed them so that his view of his brother was unobscured.

For a moment, they merely stared at each other. The interior of the tree was cool and damp with dew, and the growing heat of the morning felt far away. Even though there was a branch poking into his back that no amount of shifting seemed to dislodge, and he had to cling to another branch to keep himself steady, Avad felt himself relax further. It wasn't hard to understand why Itamen came here to feel safe.

Itamen sat on a branch similar to Avad's with his legs dangling, one of his hands gripping the trunk of the orange tree for balance. He looked wary and unhappy, but it didn't seem to be directed at Avad. Something was clutched in Itamen's other hand. It was hard to see what the object was in the shadows of the tree, but after a moment, Itamen hesitantly extended it to Avad.

"I made this for you," he said. "I wanted to give it to you at..."

At breakfast, Avad thought, when Itamen didn't finish the sentence, and for a moment, he felt like an utter failure of a brother. He leaned forward slowly, so as not to make a sudden movement, and gently took the object from Itamen with his free hand. He pulled it close, holding it cautiously, feeling the matchstick and wire beneath his fingers.

Had it been a different type of machine, it might have been a little harder to identify at first glance, but the long neck and flat head gave it away instantly.

"Mother said I should pick a machine that reminded me of you," Itamen said.

Avad rubbed his fingers up and down the length of the neck as he turned it over, examining it. "Why a tallneck?" he asked, and the question had to struggle past the lump in his throat.

"They don't attack people," Itamen said, a little shyly. "I saw one in the Rustwash, when... when we left. We went so close, and it didn't attack us. I didn't know there were machines like that. I wanted to stay and look at it, but we had to keep going."

Avad couldn't speak right away. He gathered the figurine carefully in his hand and let it settle against his lap. "Thank you, Itamen," he said quietly. "I'm honored that you would make this for me. You're getting good at these." It was identifiable at first look, and that was new.

A fleeting smile crossed Itamen's face, and he ducked his head bashfully. He had a natural inclination towards creating and working with his hands. He could be an artist or a sculptor one day, at home among Meridian's artisans and builders, among the Oseram tinkerers that now frequented the city. Even among the gardeners, as his quiet shadowing of Nasadi had demonstrated. Much more at home than he'd be with a swordmaster or a hunter.

Avad had to stop his hands from clenching, lest he damage the figurine or drive splinters into his palm. "Itamen," he asked, and he could think of no way to approach the subject more gently, "do you feel safe here?"

Itamen's eyes darted back up to meet Avad's, the smile gone. It would have been so easy to keep fostering that instead, to mend the situation with kind words and questions about Itamen's creative pursuits. But Nasadi was right: this was Avad's conversation to finish.

Second passed, and still Itamen didn't answer. He had a rather hunted look about him, and he worried at his lower lip.

"I want you to tell me the truth," Avad said, keeping his voice gentle and encouraging. "There's no wrong answer. I just want to know how you feel."

Itamen's hand tightened on the trunk. "I..." he began, then stopped. His eyes dropped to the ground below, and he shook his head.

It wasn't an unanticipated answer, but Avad's stomach twisted all the time. He couldn't make false promises about how they'd keep Itamen safe, this time around. They'd already failed to do so once, and there had been one too many instances of someone getting too close to Avad -- more so in the year after the Liberation, but that didn't mean that all was quiet now.

Even before it had all gone to shadows, there hadn't been much that anyone could do to shield Itamen. No more than anyone had been able to do for Avad or Kadaman, for their mother. But that, at least, was something that Avad could promise: no more.

"Thank you for telling me," Avad said. "I ask because that is what Marad and I were arguing about. We both want to keep you safe, but we disagree about how. Marad thinks you should learn to fight so that you can protect yourself, but your mother and I don't want you to learn yet."

He ran his fingers up and down the tallneck again, finding every groove in metal and matchstick. The branch behind him still poked into his back, uncomfortable and jarring, and a tickle at his elbow made him think that an insect had made itself comfortable there. He didn't dare let go of the figurine or the branch to flick it away.

"Fighting is... an ugly thing, Itamen," he said. "Sometimes it's necessary, but it should be treated as a serious choice. If you are Sun-King after me, most of your choices will affect people's lives, and taking up a sword or spear is no different. Do you understand?"

Itamen was watching him intently. It was more disconcerting than having the eyes of the entire court on him, but Avad met his gaze calmly, holding it until Itamen nodded.

And Avad believed him, as much as Itamen was capable of understanding at his age. Nasadi was right, that he was too young to grasp the full extent of consequences, and what it meant to hold lives in one's hands, but Itamen was good at listening. Avad had known that this conversation would be mostly one-sided, that Itamen would not be comfortable enough to start chattering back, but the important thing was that Itamen listened and heard. That he understood that he had a choice in the matter.

"We want you to be happy and safe," Avad continued, "and we don't want you to learn the sword if it makes you uncomfortable. But," he took another steadying breath, "if you don't feel safe here, and if learning to fight is something that would help, and is something you want, then we will see to it that you learn."

Itamen's eyes dropped back down to the ground. His legs swung back and forth, making the branches creak and a few leaves swirl to the ground.

"You don't have to decide right now," Avad said. "I just want you to think about it. All I ask is that you remember that wielding a weapon is a responsibility. It gives you the power to hurt other people. But it can keep other people from hurting you, too. So think about it, and talk about it with your mother, and whatever you decide is what we will do. And," he added, "you are always welcome to change your mind in the future, if you wish."

Itamen nodded again, slowly. He looked up to meet Avad's gaze and said, earnestly, "I'll think about it."

"Good," Avad said, with a little rush of relief that the hard part was over, for now. Something in the back of his mind still writhed uncomfortably at the thought of Itamen participating in martial training, but he pushed it aside. He eyed Itamen for a moment, gauging the situation, the way that the hand clutching the trunk was still tight and stiff. "How are you feeling?"

He could tell that Itamen was a breath away from lying and saying that he was fine. It was the kind of answer that Avad would have given to most people, and Itamen was more like him and like his mother than he was like Kadaman or their father. But something seemed to stop Itamen in his tracks, and though his eyes flicked away again, he shrugged.

Avad knew enough of children to know that it meant that Itamen was still feeling upset and didn't know how to express it. But mending things with something a little lighter was on the table now, and so Avad leaned forward. "Well," he said conspiratorially, "I don't have anything to do for about an hour, and I happened to noticed that there are plenty of places to hide here."

A wide smile split across Itamen's face in a flash. He almost slipped off of the branch in his sudden eagerness, and it took all of Avad's self-control not to lunge forward and steady him on instinct. Itamen could steady himself, which he did absent-mindedly and easily, utterly focused on the possibility before him. "Can you count?" Itamen asked, his voice brimming with excitement.

"Can I?" Avad asked, in exaggerated offense. "Is my own brother accusing me of not knowing my numbers?"

"Avaaad," Itamen groaned, already hopping down to the next branch thick enough to hold his weight. "Just count."

Avad smiled as Itamen's head disappeared below him. He made sure that the tallneck figurine was affixed carefully in his hold, then closed his eyes and loudly started the countdown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled to place where the "low gardens" mentioned by Uthid might be, because all I've ever seen at ground level is the fields, and I was running in circles looking in and around Meridian. But that foliage hanging off the sides of the palace mesa looks tight and gave me a desire to see some hanging gardens of Babylon, and an extravagant and private terraced affair sounds like a Carja thing, so it's a thing now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Meridian, Four Years Ago**

"You must come with us." Avad's fingers clutched at Marad's sleeves as he whispered, as they hurried across a dark balcony that was empty by design. "If he finds out..."

They neared the bridge to the city, and though Marad knew that the rest of Avad's honor guard would be waiting, his stomach still lurched instinctively at the just-visible sight of the shadowy figures standing on the Meridian side of the bridge. But Avad's guard embodied loyalty of the highest caliber, because Marad had settled for no less. It was not his job to choose who protected the prince, but he'd had a say in their final appointment, and so the soldiers waiting for them outside of the palace, as well as the ones who'd been guarding his rooms, served Avad first and had no love for his father.

"Protected" had many meanings, of course. That had been the official reason why the new heir had been locked in his rooms before the late one had even grown cold. Jiran saw potential enemies and traitors everywhere, nowadays, but fortunately for Marad, the king had not yet looked in many directions where that paranoia might be justified.

The guards on the palace end of the bridge paid them no mind as they passed. They weren't Marad's either, but he knew which ones would look the other way and when they would be at their posts.

"I will be the one to inform him of your escape," Marad said, and he stopped when they were safely ensconced in the shadows of the bridge, under the columns and arches. He motioned for the guards who'd accompanied them to continue on down the bridge and join up with their fellows, then faced Avad and gripped the prince's shoulders, all pretense gone. "You should have just enough of a head start to stay ahead of the pursuit." His grip on Avad's shoulders tightened insistently. "But you must not stop, Avad. For anything."

Avad looked at him with such raw anguish that Marad nearly wavered in his resolve. "But if he finds out..."

"He won't," Marad said, a grim promise. "I've been at this since you were an infant."

How angry he'd been, then, how determined to get back at the king, when a simple question about whether monuments constituted the best use of the Sundom's resources had seen him lose his new position as advisor to the Sun-King. Had seen him assigned as advisor to the spare child and servant to his mother, the boy not even a year old yet, a snub in all but name. But what a blessing it seemed now, as Avad looked at Marad like he still wanted to protest, like he wasn't going to leave without him. He would never look at his father quite like that, and Marad considered it a victory.

It would come back to haunt the king. Marad would see to that, even if it meant Avad leaving his sights for a while.

The mantle of cool advisor and self-made spy slipped, as Marad's stomach lurched again, and his hands came up to cup Avad's face. "Trust me," he said, and his tone invited no further argument. "And be safe."

Avad would need a man on the inside, and that was far more important than indulging in the desire to go just because Avad asked him to. Avad knew that, as much as he was prone to letting sentiment rule him, and so he gave up with a shuddering sigh. He looked at Marad now like he might never see him again, which was cynicism of a kind that he was not usually given to. But then again, no one had expected to see Kadaman's body in the Sun-Ring. Not even Marad.

An unfortunate lapse in judgment, Marad thought. He'd always known that Jiran was capable of hurting his children and that Kadaman was good at treading on his father's toes without thinking through the consequences. It had been a step, not a jump, and helping Avad to get far away was the best that Marad could do at the moment, to make up for such an oversight.

Avad offered a little nod. "You too," he murmured, his face twisting with the effort of holding back more, and Marad let his hands fall away. But something seized Avad and rooted him to the wood beneath his feet. "Itamen...?"

"I will do what I can," Marad said, but he was already conscious of the potential difficulty of that, when Jiran realized that his second son had slipped his grasp. "Go."

Avad pulled the cowl that Marad had given him over his head, but Marad could still glimpse the smudged kohl, the lines of reluctance in Avad's face. The prince remained still, frozen, the heavy silence between them broken only by the whistling wind beneath the bridge, and Marad gave him a little push. Avad didn't resist, but one of his hands came up to clasp the hand that Marad nudged him with, squeezing and releasing as he stepped away.

"Thank you, Marad," Avad said.

" _Go_ ," Marad said, and he remained in the shadows of the arches, watching as Avad hurried down the length of the bridge, as his shadow was absorbed into the shadows of his guards.

And then they were gone.

Marad waited, and he knew that no one undesired would see him. The guards on duty were allies, and he'd made sure that most of the night staff tonight were _his_. Jiran had gotten into the habit of staffing the palace with slaves, who were riskier to recruit, but only a few of the servants that Marad had hired during his time as the queen's steward had been let off since. He was still steward and mostly in charge of the schedules of all of the palace staff, simply because he was good at it, and excelling at something meant keeping your job and your life. The difference was that he now answered directly to the king and his raging paranoia; Jiran guarded Queen Nasadi and his youngest jealously, which meant that she had no steward and no control over the staff.

Marad hadn't sought any kind of promotion, even years after his demotion. Why would he, when it had opened so many doors that no Carja ruler had ever thought to utilize? Avad may have held on to a foolish hope that perhaps his father could be reasoned with and brought to heel, but Marad had been ready for a coup for nearly as long as he'd worked in the palace and had taken his own measures to prepare for it.

Regardless of Avad's softer nature, Marad had often privately thought that Avad would make a better ruler than Kadaman, though perhaps he was biased, having been at Avad's side practically since birth. But Marad's network of palace workers had been ready to support Kadaman the moment the Sundom shifted for good.

As it turned out, it was Avad after all.

Marad counted, watching the night shadows creep by, driven by the light of the moon. Then he took a breath, squared his shoulders, and took his time as he made his way to the king's chambers.

Jiran's rage was a wildfire, but Marad remained cool and collected and spoke up every time it seemed like that rage might start straying to his wife, redirecting it towards other targets and objects of suspicion with a deft word or two. Others might suffer for it, but it would not be anyone in this room. Marad didn't react when Jiran ranted about everything he would do to the traitor who was no longer his son, and a search party composed of Kestrels and the very best of the regulars had already been ordered out by the time Jiran turned the brunt of his attention on Marad himself.

"And you, Marad," the king spat, his voice shaking the room, "where do your loyalties lie?"

Marad bowed low and deep in the face of Jiran advancing on him. "I serve the Sun," he said, in complete honesty. He had faultlessly followed Jiran's every order for years and had never questioned him again. There was nothing to suspect.

It gave him great pleasure to throw that back in Jiran's face a year later. The king made it easy for him, sending away his best protectors and practically allowing Marad's people and allies to corner him in the Solarium even before the Freebooters arrived with Avad. Marad made sure that Jiran saw his face then, that the king understood who it was who had undone his reign from within, and he smiled when _traitor_ was hurled back at him with blistering hatred.

"I told you, your Radiance," Marad said coldly. "I serve the son. Not the father."

* * *

**Meridian, Present**

The day had been a bit unusual, to be sure, but Erend wasn't expecting the prince to pop up when he was in the middle of grilling petitioners before allowing them to see Avad.

It was by far the most irritating part of the day, but it was something that the captain did personally. Erend didn't trust nobles as a rule, even though most of them were genuine in their support for Avad. But this very process was exactly how one slippery bastard had nearly gotten a knife between Avad's ribs, back in the early days when Ersa had been captain, and had only been stopped because Avad was tougher than he seemed. Since then, Ersa had personally vetted everyone who came through, and Erend was keeping up the tradition. He had less worries about the less-noble folk who also made up the petitioners, but still, it made him feel better to ensure that every single one had genuine concerns and no weapons.

A quick scope of the area assured him that Itamen's long-suffering Vanguards were shadowing him as usual, and he gave them a nod of approval before turning his attention to the kid. Itamen stood fidgety and hesitant, looking up at Erend with an expression of guarded curiosity. He didn't seem aware that he was interrupting the flow of petitioners coming off the bridge, but considering the quantity of nobles and merchants today, Erend thought that was just fine.

"Need something?" Erend asked, holding up a hand to stem the flow. It was about the only thing that he could think to ask, when Itamen didn't speak right away, and Erend hastily added, "Your Luminance?" He wasn't supposed to use titles with Itamen in most situations -- something about treating him as a person rather than a prince, and reinforcing that his position in life meant serving the people, not lording above them. But the line of petitioners was a bit too close, and plenty of Carja resented the Oseram enough already.

Thankfully, no grumbling followed the halting of the proceedings, not with Itamen present. Most of the nearby petitioners were staring at him. Itamen didn't seem happy about that, so Erend stepped forward, placing himself between the line and Itamen. There may have been some faint grumbling at that, but Erend ignored it.

Itamen fidgeted some more, his hands tugging at the bottom of his ornate little vest. There were some threads loose, no doubt at Itamen's hands; hopefully no tailor was around to see it and have a fit. "I want to ask you something," Itamen said meaningfully, which meant that he wanted to ask away from other ears.

Erend nodded and gave the task of vetting petitioners to the nearest Vanguard, with stern instructions to be thorough about it. A reprieve was welcome, even though Erend could make no guesses as to what Itamen wanted to ask him about. They got along, yeah, and the kid seemed to think he was funny, but Itamen wasn't the type to hang around soldiers like he did artisans and gardeners and Vanasha.

They walked over to the balustrade that overlooked Meridian's main bridge, lit brilliantly by the near-midday sun and crawling with individuals who looked more like specks at this distance. Erend leaned against the railing, trying to make himself appear casual and non-threatening. There was sweat trickling down his back under the Vanguard steel, a steady itch. "What's up?"

Itamen's hands worried at his vest for a moment longer, then stilled. "What's your job like?" he asked earnestly.

Erend blinked. "Uh," he said. "It's... fine?" Which was not a great answer and clearly not one that Itamen was looking for, so Erend said, "Why do you ask?"

Itamen's hands folded in front of him, probably to keep from worrying at the vest and its threads again. "I'm supposed to learn as much as possible," he said, rather cryptically. Maker, but Erend hoped that the kid wasn't picking up habits from Vanasha. Or worse, Marad.

But it wasn't too hard to decipher. Itamen was apparently taking his studies out into the world, or at least, the world of the palace. Erend wondered if he'd decided to conduct an interview on his own or been instructed to. "Well," Erend said, thinking about the question, "I'm the captain of the Vanguard, so it's my job to make sure this place is safe." He gestured vaguely to the palace beyond them. "I look out for your brother too. And you and your mother, of course."

Itamen absorbed this and ruminated on it. "Is it scary?"

Erend blinked again. It wasn't the direction in which he'd expected the conversation to go. "Uh," he said again. "It can get tense, yeah, but you don't need to worry. The Vanguard's got things under control." Maybe not perfectly so -- which was impossible, as the chaos of several months ago could attest to -- but he didn't want to upset the kid.

Itamen didn't seem wholly satisfied with the answer, though Erend couldn't figure out what the kid was looking for. He couldn't figure out how to ask, either, before Itamen said, "Is that what you fight with?" His eyes were on the hilt peeking out from behind Erend's shoulder.

"Yeah," Erend said. "Wanna see it?"

Though Itamen nodded, he seemed wary, so Erend was careful about unstrapping the war hammer from his back and rotating it for Itamen to study. Itamen didn't light up like a lot of boys his age might have. He eyed the war hammer uneasily and didn't seem inclined to touch it. "It's big."

"That's 'cos I'm big," Erend said. He returned the war hammer to its place. "A weapon's gotta fit the hand that holds it."

Itamen nodded again, and Erend was on the verge of asking him why he was interested when the prince straightened, offering one more nod -- a formal one that looked impossibly odd coming from a kid his age. "Thank you for answering my questions, Captain Erend," he said, in that way that kids did when they were reciting something because they'd been taught to.

"Sure," Erend said, feeling like he'd missed something completely. "You don't need to call me captain. Erend's fine, you know. Those all the questions you got?"

Itamen bobbed his head in answer. He seemed shy at the prospect of referring to Erend by name, considering that Erend was pretty sure he'd said that very thing to Itamen before, and it looked like he was about to hurry away, so Erend blurted out the question he wanted to get to before Itamen could scamper off.

"You feeling better?" Erend asked. "After this morning, I mean."

The kid looked a bit like a startled grazer at the question, but Erend was relieved of his concern that maybe he shouldn't have asked when Itamen said, "I am, thank you," very politely, and it appeared to be genuine. Itamen was bouncing on his feet a little, as if eager to go, but it was a level of energy that seemed normal for him.

All in all, it was a strange little interaction that Erend mulled over as he returned to the line of petitioners after Itamen departed, but by the time the line had wound down, it had retreated to the back of Erend's mind.

The very last petitioner arrived just as things were wrapping up, not long before midday, as if she knew the exact second when it would be drawing to a close. It was a little uncanny how she did that. When Erend saw her approaching with parchments in hand, he waved off the other Vanguards who'd been helping him with crowd control.

"Alright, guys," he said. "I've got this. Break time."

They hurried off gladly, no doubt headed straight for the nearest Oseram-manned tavern, and Vanasha made sure to say, "Queen Nasadi wishes for me to deliver these to His Radiance," while they were still in earshot of the departing Vanguards and the bridge guards.

Erend didn't look at the parchments or check her for weapons; he was sure that she was bristling with them, somewhere under her finery. "Sounds good," he said. "I'll escort you. This way." They walked away from the bridge and its guards and followed the curving balustrade up the steps, and Erend lowered his voice. It was not his proudest moment when he asked, "Hey, so, what was that fight about, huh?"

Vanasha threw him an amused glance, her eyes glittering. "I'm sure you're _dying_ to know."

"Oh, come on," Erend said, and it was only a little pleading. "I bought you that drink."

"And it was disgusting," Vanasha said, her nose wrinkling, which Erend thought was a tad unfair. "Find a better brew if you want to loosen my tongue."

Erend sighed and stopped at the foot of the steps to the Solarium, letting her walk on ahead, as he wondered if the tavern might be stocked with something a little more Carja-adjacent.

* * *

Avad was just coming out from under the pavilion that sheltered the throne when Vanasha found him, looking much more done-up and regal than he had in the gardens. With the guards behind her, Vanasha wagged her eyebrows at him a few times as she said, "From Queen Nasadi, your Radiance," and his smile was fleeting and small as he waved away the guards who drifted back, thinking that they had one last straggler to eye.

"I'll take this here," Avad said, and Vanasha followed him from the balcony to the private area beyond, past the sofas and to the back. Avad seated himself at one of the tables underneath a pavilion that hid them from the Sun, and with great dignity, Vanasha took a cross-legged seat upon the surface of the table itself.

She liked to keep people on their toes, but Avad had quickly stopped reacting to the bait after she'd come back from Sunfall, and he only extended a hand for the parchments, pointedly ignoring the fact that she'd forgone the bench opposite him.

Vanasha handed the reports over with a smile and waited as Avad flicked through them. It was clear that his mind was elsewhere, however, and so Vanasha said nothing in the way of her usual witticisms. She wanted to get to the good part, and it wouldn't do to distract him while he considered the mundane. Not that her work was ever what one could call boring, but it had certainly been quiet in the Sundom as of late.

"This grain will have to be dealt with," Avad said lightly.

"That's usually the case," Vanasha agreed. "My lady thinks that a reshuffling of soil would invigorate some of the more reluctant crops."

"And I suppose she already has a strategy in mind?" Avad asked, his eyes flicking up in amusement.

"She does!" Vanasha said brightly, and she casually drew forth a sheet and flipped it over so that it rested on top of the sheaf in Avad's hands. "She'd like your input by tomorrow, since it involves some delicate matters of state. You know how touchy farmers are about their soil and who's tilling it."

"You'll have it," Avad said, and he let the parchment drift down towards the table. "Is that the only pressing matter?"

"Indeed," Vanasha said gravely, and she didn't say anything else, only waited expectantly, resting her elbow on her knee and her chin against her fist.

Avad set the sheaf down and settled back on the bench, folding his hands in front of him. He took in the look on Vanasha's face and sighed. "Well," he said, "what do you think?"

"About what, your luminescent Radiance?" Vanasha asked, very sweetly and innocently.

Avad didn't look impressed. "You know, that stops being funny when you do it every time."

"I am _always_ funny, Sun-King," Vanasha said, unbothered. "You're just no fun." Avad ignored that too, but she saw the flicker of a smile at the corner of his mouth. Vanasha thought that she was probably the only person who teased him regularly, and so she'd made it into a habit, if only because he seemed to like it and someone had to. "I think," Vanasha continued, lifting her head from her chin and stretching a little, "that Itamen is putting some thought into the matter, because my sources tell me that he's planning to bother Uthid next. I'm very proud of him for that, by the way."

Avad regarded her with that unimpressed look again, even though Vanasha thought it was quite remarkable how efficiently the whole thing operated. You didn't get that kind of information-sharing from incompetents. "That doesn't tell me anything about what you think."

"I was getting to a point," Vanasha said. "Patience, my most illuminating Luminance." She paused for good, long measure, and again, Avad didn't rise to the bait. She certainly had her work cut out for her, with him. "As I was saying, much like dear young Itamen, my opinion on the matter requires some consideration."

Avad leaned forward a little, interested. "It didn't last time."

"Yes, well," Vanasha said, and she frowned in thought. This time, her pause wasn't engineered for the purpose of being irritating, and Avad waited all the same. "I concern myself with protecting the Radiant Line," Vanasha said at last, seriously, meeting Avad's gaze. This part of the line, at any rate. "I hadn't truly given thought to the fact that there's more than one kind of protection. You and Nasadi's commitment to giving Itamen better than what he's gotten is... admirable." Avad's eyebrows lifted, and Vanasha added, "Don't get used to that, Sun-King. I'm not saying it again."

"But you did say it," Avad observed, something like a grin on his face.

"I already regret it," Vanasha lamented, but she grew serious again a moment later, tilting her head as she looked down at him. "I think it's right to let Itamen decide, and I think you handled it as best you can, all things considered."

Avad nodded, his face soft and reflective, his fingers playing absently with the parchment before him. "Thank you, Vanasha. I always appreciate having your input too."

It was a trait that Itamen was already emulating, Vanasha thought, recalling a little voice in a tree asking her about her fighting prowess. She smiled to herself and regarded Avad appraisingly. "Of course you do," she said. Her eyes drifted to the sky, to the Sundom beyond, awash in the unrelenting gold light of noon, the source of which was hidden above the pavilion roof that kept them shaded. Midday rites and lunch were soon, followed by a long afternoon of meetings, but she had a few minutes to get a little more intel. "Now, how are you?"

She wasn't surprised when Avad withdrew a little, pulling back and straightening. "I'm fine," he said. "I overreacted this morning, that's all."

Restating the situation wasn't answering the question, Vanasha wanted to say, and she thought that today, perhaps, he had a right to a little overreaction, but she let the evasion slide. "Really?" she said instead. "What does Marad have to say about that?"

Avad's answer was a sigh.

"I know you haven't talked to him," Vanasha continued, "because I know everything. He wasn't even here for court." That, she knew, was because Marad had, among other things, been busy wrangling with the storemaster for very sweet reasons of his own, but Vanasha wasn't above needling the Sun-King too.

Avad continued his impressive streak of not letting her bother him today. "I'll talk to him," he said evenly. "At the vigil."

That made Vanasha pause in surprise, which wasn't always an easy thing to do. What an interesting choice of location. Well... Marad _had_ taught Avad too, in a different manner. She twirled a finger in the silk mesh on her arms, thinking about it. "You're not going to be too hard on him, are you?"

Avad smiled. It looked rather tired. "I'm going to apologize."

Vanasha considered this, reevaluating the choice of location in its new light. Well then. How very magnanimous. "Let me know if he doesn't return the favor," she said, uncurling her legs and hopping off of the table. "I've got all kinds of boring non-issues that I can dump on him."

"And you would accuse _me_ of being too hard on him?"

"Someone's got to be," Vanasha said, stepping back into the light of the Sun and offering a melodramatic bow that was intended to convey the opposite of respect. Avad was still smiling, and Vanasha thought that it was remarkable indeed, how efficient she was at getting the royal family to do just that. "Wouldn't want him to lose his edge, now, would we?"

* * *

When Uthid arrived at the palace that day, he found someone waiting for him outside the western keep, and not who he expected.

"Prince Itamen," Uthid said. He bowed his head to the boy before him and exchanged nods with the Vanguards behind. "To what do I owe this honor?"

Inside the keep was the council room, where Uthid was headed. He had twofold duties nowadays: those of a military advisor and those of an informant for Vanasha. The latter involved merely dropping off an inventory sheet with a servant who'd be waiting just inside the keep, but today, Uthid's main concern was to deliver his assessment on the feasibility of keeping Sunfall fully outfitted, this time with soldiers who were not at war with their own kin, and to explore alternative options.

Avad took his concerns seriously, but the resources simply didn't follow suit. They'd taken heavy losses and damage during the battle for Meridian, and there was the matter of the machines still threatening every other corner of the Sundom as well. Even bolstered with a few Shadow Carja soldiers returned the fold -- those who had been more like Uthid than like the Kestrels, and whose reintegration had fallen primarily to Uthid -- they were stretched thin.

Uthid didn't like to admit it, but perhaps he'd have to concede to Marad on this one: there simply wasn't enough of anything to go around, not for a summer palace that now carried a shadow-tainted reputation and still housed a few vermin that needed to be ousted as well. Even without his brother and Shadowside being held up as implicit hostages, Avad wasn't keen on bringing force against those who wouldn't think twice about killing him. Not when all that remained of the Shadow Carja were weak and splintered, in an area increasingly littered with dangerous machines, and the Sundom was stretched thin enough. Uthid respected the restraint in that, even as he chafed at the idea of leaving the area mostly unattended. The reintegration of Blazon Arch wasn't enough.

He didn't like the thought of even one Shadow Carja lurking out there, and he didn't like how active the Forbidden West had become as of late. Occasional sightings of machines and men at the far end of the Daunt where they hadn't been before, strange noises, lights on the nighttime horizon that looked too isolated and rhythmic to be lightning storms.

It stank like heat-broiled machine oil.

But Itamen stood on the steps that led up to the royal balcony, the Solarium, and the doors to the western and eastern keeps, blocking the way and distracting Uthid from the troubled thoughts that had hounded him all the way to the palace. The Vanguards behind Itamen offered Uthid an apologetic look, but Uthid only arranged his face in what he hoped was an encouraging smile. It wasn't as hard for him as Vanasha seemed to think.

"May I ask you something?" Itamen said, fidgeting as he looked up at Uthid.

His cautious, curious eyes were quite large and pleading. How could Uthid say no to that? He made a habit of punctuality, always giving himself a few extra minutes to arrive at his destination, and because nothing had slowed him on the way here, those few extra minutes could be spent in service of the young prince.

"Anything, y-" Uthid stopped short, lest Vanasha somehow find out that he'd started using titles with Itamen and berate him for it. They were trying something new, among those close enough to the royals to be in on it, but old habits were hard to break. "I have a council meeting in a few minutes, but that's plenty of time to talk."

Itamen nodded, then shyly beckoned for Uthid to follow. Uthid allowed himself to be led, and the Vanguards moved aside indulgently.

"If you need to get to that meeting, sir--" one of them whispered as Uthid passed.

Uthid waved a hand dismissively and followed Itamen onto the royal balcony, where Avad usually held court. It was empty now and shaded from the Sun slowly sinking past midday. The Vanguards stayed at the entrance to the balcony, but Itamen circled around to the throne and leaned on the railing that encircled the whole thing, looking down at the cistern below and the lower balcony beyond. With very little in the way of presence or chatter currently occupying the open-air balconies of the palace, the waterfalls underneath them cascaded clear and musical.

After a moment of contemplation, Uthid mirrored the action, twining his fingers into one of the pinnacles and looking out at Meridian shining across the palace bridge, thinking to put Itamen at ease by following his lead. Itamen seemed nervous indeed, biting his lip and clutching the railing tightly as he looked down.

"What do you do?" Itamen finally ventured, turning to face Uthid.

Perhaps it was because Uthid had been caught at unawares and hadn't known what to expect, but he stared down at the prince and could make no sense of it. "I beg your pardon?"

Itamen's hand pulled at a stray thread at the bottom of his vest. "What do you do for your job?" he clarified, a little timidly.

"Ah," Uthid said, though he wondered why Itamen was asking -- or, more accurately, why Itamen had led him to a private balcony in order to ask. "I'm a military advisor to Avad now." He didn't mention the work he did on the side for Vanasha. "That means I assist him with the Sundom's military matters. I've been assessing our numbers and resources recently, to see how much we can spare for... various needs." He only just stopped himself from explaining why, as he didn't know how much Itamen was privy to. Of course, the prince would need to know one day, but Vanasha's tongue was so very sharp when she was in a mood, and Uthid had no desire to be hauled over the hot sands for talking about things better kept to council rooms.

Itamen watched and listened, attentive as a hawk. "Do you ever have to fight?"

Uthid regarded him for a moment, reflecting on the odd question. It wasn't like Itamen to show any interest in combat. "Not since the battle for Meridian. I fought more when I was only a soldier." He let a small smile cross his face, one that felt more natural. If Itamen was developing interest in the subject, then Uthid had a story or two. "Did I ever tell you about the bandits I fought out on the Greenclimb?"

"I heard some soldiers talk about it at the Citadel," Itamen said, but he didn't look particularly thrilled at the prospect of hearing about it. The thread that he was tugging at snapped, and he wrapped his fingers around it. "Are there a lot of bandits out there?"

Uthid was beginning to feel as if there was a part of this conversation of which he had not been apprised. "They're always a problem," he said, a little wary as he wondered what Itamen was trying to get at, "but there have been less as of late."

Itamen's face was far too serious for his age as he contemplated this. "Do you think Meridian will be attacked again?"

The question caught Uthid off guard, to say the least. Was Itamen asking all of this because he feared such a thing happening? But what kind of answer could Uthid offer? To lie and give false reassurances was not in his nature, nor was it something that would benefit Itamen.

"... I can't say," Uthid said, his mind drawn unbidden back to the Forbidden West. "The future is not for us to know. But I doubt that an attack from the Shadow Carja will happen again." Not like the last one. "And certainly not bandits," he added. He hesitated, then sank down to one knee, to put himself at eye level with the prince. "You need not worry, Itamen," he said, reaching out to rest a hand on Itamen's shoulder. "Whatever happens, we work hard to ensure that our people are strong enough and protected enough to withstand it."

Itamen gave a little nod, but it seemed that none of Uthid's answers or reassurances had done anything to put him at ease. He was even more antsy now, looking away and stepping back as Uthid withdrew his hand. "Thank you for answering my questions, Uthid," Itamen said, very formally but haltingly, almost tripping over the name.

For some reason, hearing his name spoken unadorned by the prince lifted a mood that had otherwise begun to sink as Uthid felt that he had somehow misspoken or misunderstood the entire conversation. "You're very welcome," Uthid said. "If I may ask... why do you want to know all of this?" If Itamen was worrying about potential attacks, then it was another thing to report to Vanasha or Avad.

Itamen wasn't quite looking at him. "... I'm curious," he said, in a way that sounded like he'd plucked the descriptor from someone else's mouth.

Curious indeed, Uthid thought, as Itamen hurried back to his guards, and Uthid was left staring after them, before he shrugged and made his way into the western keep and the council room. He gave the inventory sheet to the servant who was waiting for him, and later, when he next saw Vanasha, he brought the incident up to her and got only her enigmatic smile and laughter in return.

* * *

The day wound on, long and full. After an atypical morning, it settled back into its usual routine, which saw Nasadi moving between the palace and the rest of Meridian. Her rightful duties as head of the household had been restored to her upon her return to Meridian, but her family background and experience also saw her leading the initiative to restore the maizelands and get Meridian's flow of food back up to par as quickly as possible after the Eclipse assault.

It was second nature to take over for Avad that morning, so that the rescheduled meeting was only briefly delayed, and the agricultural minister still got to speak to a member of the royal household. He had kind things to say about the late estate and her father, and Nasadi leaned on it, so that an agreement was quickly and happily reached. The successful meeting left her in good spirits, but as the Sun etched its path across the sky, evening and the vigil began to take precedent in her mind, a heavy thing that weighed down every habitual movement.

She retreated to her rooms to eat and change into the appropriate attire, telling her handmaidens to take the rest of the day off so that she could be alone, and the light of the Sun through the bay windows was turning reddish when a knock came at the door.

She'd seen Marad a few times that day, but only briefly. He moved as much as she did and often along the same paths, carrying out a thousand tasks with an efficiency and organization that she hoped to match one day; she'd gotten many tips from him since she'd been back. Today, however, she'd buried the uncharitable instinct to be frosty towards him, behavior not befitting a queen and not something she wanted to model for Itamen. But she hadn't stuck around to speak to him for very long, either, and so to find him outside the door was a surprise.

He bowed deep -- perhaps deeper than warranted. "May I come in?"

"Of course," Nasadi said and stepped back, wondering if this was about the morning. She closed the door after him and was taken aback when he turned and offered a slip of parchment to her.

It was a copy of a work order, requesting a shipment. Nasadi stared down at the words and had to read them twice before they sank in.

"Those don't grow as well here," she said, her voice suddenly thick.

"No," Marad said, "but if we can grow trees into the side of a mesa, we can very well grow Sun's splendor here." He tapped at the parchment, which hung loose in Nasadi's hands. "You'll notice that I also put in a request for the requisite soil."

Nasadi gazed at the order again. "The storemaster will have his work cut out for him," she murmured. Sun's splendor grew mainly in eastern Sundom, in and around the Spurflints. It had been abundant near the estate, before Nasadi had left and the estates in the area had been abandoned due to machine encroachment. She'd always loved the little orange flowers for their brilliance and rarity. They were difficult to cultivate outside of their wild habitats, but worth the effort.

"Indeed," Marad said, in a way that made Nasadi think that a bit of argument had been involved. "But the soldiers at Day's Height are more than capable of digging."

"Is that really the best use of their time?" Nasadi asked. Not because she didn't want to see her favorite flowers growing here, but because that was what they were all focused on these days: the best use of resources, what would yield the most for the least amount of effort, in order to see the Sundom fully back on its feet.

Marad's smile was faint, but there. "I think a little more brightness around these parts is vital."

Nasadi was already planning ahead -- the flowers would likely need to be cultivated in flats, and the gardens would probably be too shaded and wet. A flat on the balcony outside her rooms, then, and if it was successful, then perhaps flats on other balconies around the palace as well. She looked up and smiled. "Marad," she said, "are you getting me flowers?"

He inclined his head. "I hope they're to your liking."

As far as apologetic gestures went, it was a bit more than the situation warranted, but Marad occasionally had a flair for the dramatic. Nasadi drew the parchment in closer and regarded the man before her, trading her smile for something more pensive. She wasn't upset with him for trying to sidestep her wishes, not really. He worried for Itamen like Vanasha did, and it was a job to them besides. He pushed Avad because that was his job too, because he'd been at Avad's side for a long time. Nasadi could forgive that.

"They are," she said. "I appreciate this very much, Marad. As I do everything you've done for us."

Marad inclined his head to her. "I'm glad to hear that. And," he sighed and didn't look quite so much like his usual inscrutable self, "I apologize. My timing today has been exceptionally poor. I did not mean to scare Itamen and force the issue."

"Isn't forcing the issue your job?" Nasadi asked.

"In a manner of speaking," Marad said, oblique as ever, "but it applies to those in my way, not those in my care."

Before Nasadi could answer, another knock came at the door. Itamen entered before the sound had scarcely faded, waving to his guards behind him as he pulled the door closed. He stopped when he saw Marad, the door still hanging half-open.

"Itamen," Nasadi said chidingly, stepping forward to close the door behind him, "you're late. The vigil starts soon, and you haven't even eaten yet."

"Sorry, Mother," Itamen said, automatically moving closer to her side, his eyes on Marad.

To Nasadi's surprise, Marad crouched down, leaning on a knee and meeting Itamen's gaze at his level. "I'm sorry for frightening you this morning," he said, very solemnly, with none of the dry undertone that usually flavored his voice. "It won't happen again."

Itamen nodded. "It's okay," he said earnestly. "I think you make a good argument."

Marad's eyebrows shot up, and Nasadi couldn't help it. She snorted, raising a hand to her mouth to smother her grin at the unusual sight of surprise on Marad's face. He glanced up at her, a dryness returning to his gaze. "That's high praise indeed," he said, returning his eyes to Itamen. Nasadi half-expected him to pursue the issue, now that it seemed like Itamen was open to it, but all he did was reach out and clasp Itamen's shoulder. "I'll see you both at the vigil."

He straightened out and gave Nasadi a nod, then departed.

Nasadi stood there, contemplative, then set the work order aside and herded Itamen to his dinner. She hurried to grab his evening attire while he ate, but she kept her eyes on him and noted how he picked at his food, staring down at it without enthusiasm.

"Vanasha told me you've talked to half the palace," Nasadi said from across the room, laying out the regalia on one of the sofas. The silken thread and delicate metal caught the light pouring through the windows, dyed red. "And it sounds like you think Marad has a point. Have you given your training some thought?"

Itamen nodded, rolling a bit of strawberry around on his plate.

"I'd like to hear your thoughts," Nasadi prompted gently. It had been a long day for him, and so she refrained from encouraging him to eat more than a few bites. He'd be hungry enough later to make up for it.

She got a shrug in return. "I don't know yet," Itamen said, a bit morose.

His searching eyes lifted from his dinner and found her, clearly asking if that was okay, and so Nasadi stopped in her flurrying about the chambers to give him her full attention. "You don't have to know yet," she said, drifting towards the table where Itamen sat. She observed him as he returned his attention to his dinner and continued to pick at it. It wasn't just today's events, she thought, either the morning's or the evening's fast approaching. Something else had been dredged up.

"What's wrong?" Nasadi asked.

Itamen went very still, like he'd been caught. He frowned down at the food and bit his lip. "... I didn't want them to do all of those things at Sunfall," he said slowly, unhappily.

Had Nasadi possessed less self-control, the prickling of her eyes might have spilled forth. As it was, her voice was shaky as she immediately circled around the table and knelt next to Itamen. "Oh, my little light," she said, "I know." She ghosted a hand across his cheek. "It wasn't your fault, you know that, right?"

"I know, but..." Itamen's face scrunched up in miserable frustration.

"But it still feels that way, doesn't it?" Nasadi said softly.

Itamen gave her a small nod, his eyes watery.

And how many times had Vanasha tried to reassure her of much the same? Nasadi knew that only time and new experiences would cool the harsh burns of memory, and yet everything in her yearned to find the miraculous words that would take such a feeling from her son. From herself. But all she could do -- all they could do -- was try to give Itamen that time and those experiences. "I'm sorry," Nasadi said. "I know it feels terrible. But one day, you'll look back, and it won't feel the same. I promise you that."

It felt like an inadequate promise, but Itamen looked at her like he trusted the words, and it eased something in Nasadi's heart to know that he still believed in bright horizons.

"Would you like to eat later?" she asked, running a hand through Itamen's hair.

"Yes, please," he said at once, gratefully shoving the platter away.

They got ready for the vigil instead, Nasadi outfitting Itamen in the regalia and Itamen helping her to fix her hair -- just the two of them, like they used to do in Sunfall. As Itamen placed pins carefully and chattered about all of the guards and advisors he'd talked to today, Nasadi looked out of the bay windows at the setting Sun and smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Sun's splendor that Marad and Nasadi talk about is the [desert mariposa lily](http://www.desertwildflower.com/sites/default/files/pictures/Desert-Mariposa-Lily-blooms-Pipes-Canyon-May-24-2010_0.jpg).


	4. Chapter 4

The last of the Sun's rays were sinking below the western cliffs. Here in the Sun-Ring, the Sun itself could no longer be seen, and long shadows crept across the reddening, darkening sandstone. The heat emanating from the stone was abating, but hundreds of candles had been lit, and the brazier adorning the largest altar in the center of the ring blazed. More and more people were arriving, making the wide space feel small and tight and warm, and Marad could feel the captain's agitation behind them like an itch.

There was no special place for the Sun-King to observe the vigil. Avad had merely picked a spot, and the only thing that made it stand out was the number of Vanguards clustered close. Others, Carja and outlander alike, filled in the rest of the Sun-Ring, some taking to the stands above, and the Sun-Priests took their customary place in the center of the ring, circling the altar there.

The Sun-Ring saw nearly as much activity as it had when Avad had first decreed it a place of mourning. Wounds were slow to heal, and fresh reasons to mourn had stacked up over the years. It stood there for those who wished to utilize it at all hours of the day, but it was never quite so busy as it was on the days that had been set aside for that very purpose. This evening marked an annual and official time of dedication to those who had died in the Sun-Ring, a time for collective mourning, and the last time Marad had seen so many people gathered together in one place in the city had been during the sacrifices.

The vigil, at least, had no coerced attendance.

Marad didn't pay much attention to the rites and blessings, delivered as the last of the Sun's light faded. He stood, as always, at Avad's right, and Itamen was at Avad's left. The prince fidgeted only a little and was clearly uncomfortable in his regalia, but remained unmoving, for the most part, under his mother's watchful eyes at his other side. Vanasha was at Nasadi's left, deceptively attentive as ever, and Erend was behind them, more serious about his job than Marad would have imagined a year ago. And so Marad let his mind wander, but he could focus on little save for the presence at his left, burning in his awareness like the vanished Sun.

Avad had said little to him today when they'd seen each other, and what he had said had been cordial and restrained. Marad wondered if the matter was simply going to be dropped without any further discussion. It wasn't like Avad, but Marad had pushed when he shouldn't have, he knew. He hadn't meant to, and perhaps it would not have happened with better timing, but Marad had decided that he'd followed the king's lead in however Avad wanted to resolve this. If Avad never brought it up again, then neither would Marad.

With the rites concluded, the Sun-Priests took up their psalms, chants that would carry on late into the night to lift the mourners' prayers high into the sky. There was no official speech from Avad or anything of the sort. Such times of grief were not about him, he'd said, and Marad remembered the thirteenth king's booming voice carrying out across the Sun-Ring from the stands, harsh as the desert Sun.

Vanasha shot Marad a pointed and slightly dirty look, right about the same time that Avad caught his eye. It left Marad feeling distinctly cornered, and when Avad tilted his head towards a nearby altar, Marad nodded and followed and shot a look right back at Vanasha as they passed, only to find her looking satisfied.

The altar was one of many that circled the Sun-Ring, carved from stone and lined with candles. Mourners had been leaving tokens and mementos and dedications for three years: flowers, oils, Oseram shields, brightly threaded Banuk monuments, and other personal items belonging to the dead or to the living they'd left behind, as well as scrolls upon scrolls. Letters to the dead, left there for as long as it took the heat of the Sun to wither the parchment.

It was a scroll that Avad clutched tightly in his hand, and Marad didn't need to wonder who it was addressed to.

They were the only two who stood at this particular altar, one of the smaller ones tucked close to the wall of the Sun-Ring. Marad saw Itamen placing one of his handmade figurines on the next altar over, watched over by Nasadi, Vanasha, Uthid, and the Vanguards, but Avad's guards were giving him space. Erend leaned against the wall a little distance away, arms folded and eyes watchful, but he was the closest and not close enough to listen in.

Avad placed the scroll down gently among the others that had been stacked on the little table before the altar, next to the lantern candle holders and burnished jars of oils and incense. The scroll was bright and crisp next to the Sun-glazed parchment of older letters, but soon it would be indistinguishable, a loss among many.

Avad knelt as he set it down, but he didn't close his eyes. He stared past the altar, his gaze far away, and Marad said nothing and didn't move, only stood beside him and waited as night's shadows fell over them at last. The sandstone was no longer red, but grayish-blue, except for where the candlelight and brazier light cast splashes of orange.

"I'm sorry, Marad," Avad said suddenly. His voice was soft and well-masked by the murmuring of the Sun-Priests behind them, and any conversation between them would not be overheard. Avad rose to his feet again, but his eyes stayed on the altar. "I should never have raised my voice at you. That is not who I want to be."

Marad stared down at the altar too, at the scrolls and the candles and the little mementos placed upon the rocks. What a racket this place had made, only a few years ago, screams and machine screeches echoing throughout Meridian. "Your Radiance," he said, just as soft, and Avad frowned at the title, "you are harboring an inflated sense of grandeur if you think that was anything like your father's dulcet tones."

It shocked a laugh out of Avad, a quiet thing that he quickly smothered lest the Sun-King be seen chuckling at the vigil. Avad glanced sideways at Marad. "Wasn't grandeur one of his many issues?"

"And so you'd do well to remove such foolish thoughts from your head," Marad said, and then he sighed. "Regardless, the fault was mine. I could have picked a better day to bring it up."

Avad looked at him with no lingering resentment, only a soft fondness, and Marad wondered why he'd ever thought that Avad would hold on to a grudge. "I think we're all on edge," Avad said.

But Marad waved the comment aside and lifted his head, meeting Avad's gaze squarely. "Don't offer excuses on my behalf," Marad said. "I have something to say."

"Marad--" Avad began, but he fell silent at the look that Marad gave him.

Marad tried to hold the gaze, but he found his eyes drifting back down to the altar. It was cowardly, perhaps, but it was easier to talk to the stone, to the scrolls, to the little flames dancing above the wax. Still, it took him a few moments to find the words, even though he'd been ruminating on them all day. "When you were ten," he said, and something very heavy fell from his throat to his stomach, "I knew you hadn't broken your arm during training."

Next to him, Avad stilled. All that moved was the candlelight.

"I knew how many times Kadaman's injuries did _not_ come from his training," Marad continued. "I knew what I was covering up when your father ordered me to make adjustments to your lesson schedule, when there had been no lessons on the days or times it stated. I knew what I was lying about when I was ordered to explain it to the healers like so. But I knew that if I tried to address it in any way, the consequences could rebound on you, on myself. I was complicit in many things, because I felt that it was necessary to protect us in the long-term."

He stopped talking and sighed, deep and tired. He had made peace with a great many things that he'd done, with those he'd thrown under metaphorical and sometimes literal machine claws, and with those whose deaths and subjugation he'd turned away from or abetted in order to keep himself and his people above suspicion. But not with this. He could calculate a rough but accurate estimate of every insult and scream and blow directed at the thirteenth king's sons over the years, and there was no making peace with that.

"Nevertheless," Marad said, "I was complicit."

He chanced a glance at Avad and saw that the king was staring down at the scrolls again, his expression troubled and guarded. Then Avad sighed too, the tension melting away. "If you hadn't been," he said, looking up at Marad with a fleeting, sad smile, "he would have had you dismissed. Or killed. And after Mother..." his voice failed for a moment, and he found it again with a tremor, "well, who would've been left?"

Who indeed, Marad thought. He had never, in all of his ambitions and scheming, imagined himself as a shoulder to cry on, and it hadn't been often besides, not when such displays were deemed unseemly and thus kept to private, hidden moments. But he remembered how small Avad had been, then, how prone to emotion, until he'd grown older and learned to bury it deep. Even Kadaman, once or twice, though Marad was not his retainer and the older prince, who was possessed of a more typical Carja pride, would have sworn an hour later that such incidents had never occurred.

"He made us all complicit, Marad," Avad said, looking as tired as Marad felt. "All we can do now is try to repair the damage."

The singing of the Sun-Priests echoed soft and melancholic, marked by periodic pauses in which they caught their breath and only the murmuring of mourners filled the Sun-Ring. It was calm, serene, blanketed in soft shadows, and when the Sun rose again, it would shine on wounds that were a little more healed over, the mending written into scrolls and left in trinkets and remembrances. "I thought I told you no excuses," Marad said, and if his voice was a tad shakier than usual, Avad made no remark on it.

"I recall something of the sort," Avad said. "But I don't blame you. Why do you think you have that title?"

Marad usually gave little thought to whether it was deserved or not. It functioned to excuse him from all that he'd done to undermine Jiran's reign, and nowadays to paradoxically make his position as spy seem very luminous and on the nose while most of the gritty work was done by Vanasha and those less visible in the Sun's light. "You _are_ too soft," he murmured.

Half a smile tugged at Avad's mouth. "We agreed that the Sundom needed that, didn't we?"

Marad huffed. "I suppose we did."

Avad turned back to the altar, thoughtful, and didn't speak again for a long moment, until: "I think you make some points that I have been too stubborn to see clearly," he said. "I might be dead-- what is it now? Twice over? If I didn't know what to do when a knife came at me. And more times than that," he added, "if you didn't work as hard as you do."

Marad considered it, then inclined his head, acknowledging the commendation for what it was. "Avad," he said, "you are allowed to be stubborn sometimes."

"I know that," Avad said, "but I shouldn't stand in the way of what Itamen wants, and I should have considered his feelings from the beginning. You did help me to realize that, even if it wasn't your intent."

Marad nodded slowly. He turned, and his eyes trailed over to the nearest altar, where other mourners had come forward, and past it, where Itamen was doing his best to remain patient with the proceedings, and Vanasha was easily splitting her attention between keeping an eye on things and entertaining the prince and his mother with her usual jokes and sleight of hand. "Your father never listened to anyone like that," Marad said.

"I remember how many times you stopped to listen to me," Avad said quietly. It was still vivid in Marad's mind: a boy finding him in his rooms, or in and around the palace, occasionally trailed by his brother, to talk or complain or question or, sometimes, to cry when it was safe to. Advisor to the second prince wasn't supposed to mean much, except to put Marad in his place, but it meant a great deal after all. "I learned a lot from you."

Marad stared down at the altar, his throat curiously dry and resistant. Avad, with all of the grace and insight he'd gotten from his mother, didn't expect anything else from Marad. He turned back to the altar and knelt down again, running a finger down the scroll he'd placed on the table. "And yet I never know what to say," he murmured.

He'd learned how to craft words from Marad too. There were plenty of things that Marad could say, that others poured out into their letters, but he kept them close and hidden. Instead, he followed Avad's lead and crouched down beside the king, picking up the long-handled candlelighter that lay underneath the table, the metal cool beneath his fingers. He handed it to Avad and then clasped his shoulder. "However inadequate your words feel," Marad said, "you cannot be worse at it than Kadaman."

For the second time that evening, a laugh was startled out of Avad, a snort that slipped out. "Don't speak so rudely of the dead," he muttered, trying and failing to contain a small grin as he stretched the lighter out to one of the gleaming flames.

"He'd be disappointed in us if we didn't," Marad said.

Carefully, Avad carried a flame to one of the unlit candles sitting in its lantern holder. It burst to life and danced along with the others, casting flickering shadows on the nearby wall, and Avad set the lighter down, the grin still lingering at the corners of his mouth. "He would," Avad agreed, his quiet and sadness tempered by something lighter that night.

* * *

Itamen was worried about hurting the plants, and there wasn't much open space in the gardens besides, so they made their secretive way down to the hollow behind the palace mesa.

Neither machines nor people strayed here by accident, which was why there was a shallow path on the other side of the lake into which the two waterfalls poured. It led up to land past the Meridian Gate, and Avad knew that Marad and Vanasha's people utilized it often, to move between the gate and Meridian Village without being seen. It was also a path that the Freebooters had used to encircle the city, during the Liberation. The hollow and the lake were boxed in by the cliffs and the two mesas, which made it an ideal place for privacy, and it was a strange little entourage that took up residence there one afternoon.

The area between the palace mesa and the northwestern cliffs had enough cover to keep it cool instead of blistering, and enough open ground covered by long grasses and soft mosses and ferns to serve them well. The trees were rich-leaved and scattered, thicker in number as the area stretched south, and shafts of red-gold sunlight pierced the air between them, illuminating little insects and motes of forest debris that floated on the air. The breeze was continuous here, rustling the branches and grasses, and the waterfalls above the lake cascaded endlessly in a resonant hum.

The rest of the Vanguard detail waited in the shade to the south, the only route by which anyone could easily come, but Erend remained close. He leaned against the nearest cliff wall, in the shade of some of the trees, and watched with an amused smirk. Itamen stood beside him, much less at ease, his wide eyes following Vanasha and Avad.

"Don't you worry, little prince," Vanasha said as she stretched a few times. She was dressed for a fight, and Avad had foregone palace clothes in favor of the plainest gear he could obtain. "Your brother's in safe hands. I won't hurt him."

"That's very presumptuous," Avad said, and he glanced over at Itamen, offering him a reassuring smile. "Itamen, who do you think will win?"

Itamen went to answer, then stopped himself, looking a little self-conscious. It was an answer all on its own, Itamen too soft-hearted to want to hurt Avad's feelings, and Erend burst into laughter. "My shards are on her too," he said with a shrug.

Avad shook his head. "My brother _and_ my captain," he said with a sigh, but he smiled at Itamen as he said it. He turned back to Vanasha, who was eyeing him and starting to circle back and forth. "No faith today, I see."

"Oh, I know what you can do," Vanasha said, giving him a grin that would probably be frightening if Avad was an enemy. "But I'm better." Which was no doubt true. "Still, winning is secondary. This is about learning." Her words were mostly directed at Itamen now. "It's perfectly safe."

Avad nodded to reinforce the words, and Itamen looked a little more relaxed, though his hands remained clutched at his vest. "Do you still want to watch?" Avad asked, just to be sure. It had been Itamen's idea, mostly, after a length of deliberation: to learn from someone he trusted, and someone Avad and Nasadi trusted, someone very different from a loud, angry man or a stern swordmaster. Vanasha had suggested that Itamen merely watch her first, to observe and get comfortable with the idea of combat, and Itamen had wanted Avad there for the first go-round.

So of course Avad had arranged for it. Nasadi and Marad could handle the palace for an afternoon, and he thought it'd be good for Itamen to see him engage in combat meant for defense. He didn't care for it either, and he'd done his time, so to speak, but it was his duty to model for Itamen, to share in the same experiences so that they were less intimidating. Besides, it was good to keep his skills fresh, something he didn't always attend to.

"You won't get hurt?" Itamen asked, his eyes shifting between Avad and Vanasha.

"Not at all," Vanasha said, not for the first time. "Ready?"

After a moment, Itamen nodded. He looked a little curious too, somewhere between anticipation and worry, and the only way to put the latter to rest was to demonstrate.

So Vanasha turned back to Avad and started circling in earnest now, another grin spilling across her face. "And you, Sun-King?" she asked, stepping among the grasses with misleading delicacy. "Are you ready?"

"Probably not," Avad admitted, shifting his stance and planting his feet like he remembered. It came back easily enough, but it wasn't natural like it clearly was for Vanasha.

As it turned out, he wasn't quite ready for Vanasha to plant him on his back in the moss, but he caught her wrist with the training stick in hand before it could get close to his throat, which wasn't bad. Vanasha rose to her feet, winking at him, but before Avad could follow suit, he was distracted by what he glimpsed out of the corner of his eye: Erend pulling a ledger out from within his jerkin and showing it to Itamen, who was still watching Avad anxiously.

"Alright, let's see if we can point out what he did wrong," Vanasha said to Itamen, dusting off her hands, and then said to Erend, "and what that adds up to."

"You're actually placing bets?" Avad asked, as Vanasha offered him her hand, and he took it, hauling himself up.

"Told ya where my shards are going," Erend said apologetically, whipping out a pen and ink that had also been stuffed into his jerkin, and it didn't sound very apologetic at all. "Hey, Itamen, you wanna keep score?"

Avad started to laugh, and after a moment, Itamen smiled and took the ledger, growing more relaxed as the shafts of light through the trees stretched longer and more angular, and the Sun wound its meandering way down towards the west.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teaching Itamen the value of a good roast.  
> 


End file.
